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WHAT HAS SPIRITUALISM DONE FOR THE WORLD? 



By 






J. M. PEEBLES, M. D., M. A., 



Author of 



<l The Seers of the Ages," "Immortality, and Our Future Dwelling Places, 

"The Christ Question Settled," "Three Journeys Around the 

World," "Death Defeated or the Psjchic Secret of How to 

Keep Young," "Spiritualism versus Materialism," 

"Vaccination a Curse," etc., etc. 



Peebles Institute Print 
1903 



V 



II N 



PREFACE. 

Over the porral of the Temple of Sais, said Iamblicus, "was 
inscribed these words, — 'I am all that has been, and shall be; 
and my peplum, or vail, no mortal hath yet withdrawn.' " "Man 
dieth, wasteth away, giveth up the ghost, and where is he ?" was 
an Old Testament writer's inquiry. The thought of immortality 
was ever before the minds of the ancients, and measurably un- 
answered. They saw through a glass darkly ; but thanks to God 
and the good angels, Spiritualism has lifted and drawn aside that 
'vail,' demonstrating a future, conscious existence, and thereby 
intimately acquainting us with the conditions and occupations 
of those whose bodies are wasting away beneath the grasses and 
the weeping willows of the valley. 

"Have any of the scribes and the Pharisees believed on 
Him," the Nazarene? was the common question in the city of 
Jerusalem, in Galilee, and the regions beyond Jordan in the early 
days of that inspired man and martyr of Palestine. 

Human nature, whether Turanian, Semitic or Aryanic, is the 
same in all ages. The masses seek fame, pelf, power. The ever- 
recurring question of this materialistic, generation is not — is 
this demonstrated fact of a future life true — is this newly con- 
ceived truth that invisible intelligences exist and communicate 
with us really true? — but, is it respectable, is it popular, have 
the churches — have the Pharisees of fashion accepted it? Do 
the rich and aristrocatic patronize it? Such is largely the poor, 
piteous obliquity of to-day's mental and religious condition. 

To meet the needs of such inglorious specimens of humanity 
— such babes in the scale of a royally-unfolded manhood, — has 
this collection of noted names been gathered from press articles, 
books, and magazine essays — and booked ; and in the collec- 
tion I have been greatly aided by that distinguished writer, 
author, and book-reviewer, James Smith, of Melbourne, Austra- 



Ma; E. W. Wallis, eloquent lecturer, writer, and assistant editor 
of London "Light," in his recent "Testimonies of Distinguished 
Clergymen," etc. Some of those, whose names are herein re- 
corded, illumined the pages of long-ago history, — such as So- 
crates. Certain others mentioned, though investigating the spir- 
itual phenomena and the psychic forces in man for years, have 
not openly avowed their adhesion to Spiritualism, but with 
hyper-cautiousness, they announce themselves as, "investiga- 
tors." The great majority, however, have been, or are to-day 
acknowledged and avowed Spiritualists, and I may add, very 
many of them have I personally met in my extensive travels in 
foreign lands. Some few mistakes there may be. These if 
pointed out will be promptly corrected in future editions. 

J. M. PEEBLES, M. D. 
Battle Creek, Michigan. 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALS? 

M JS J£ J£ Jg 

Spiritualism is the philosophy of life — and the direct an- 
tithesis of materialism. If the illustrious Tyndall saw the 
'"potency and promise" of ali life in matter, Spiritualists, with all 
rationalistic idealists, see the potency and promise of all life and 
evolutionary unfoldment in Spirit, which Spirit permeates and 
energizes the matter of all the subordinate kingdoms, mineral, 
vegetable, and animal. 

Thinking — meditating, Columbus concluded that if there 
was a "this-side," there must necessarily be a "that side" to the 
world. And so sailing on and still onward towards the western 
sunset under the inspiration of a lofty faith, he discovered the 
new world,- -- and, like a flash, faith became fruition. 

And so students of the occult; Spiritualists of the last cen- 
tury, meditating — investigating, discovered, or rather, re-dis- 
covered the spirit world — the Spiritualism of the elder ages. 
Intuition and the soul's higher senses, with the outreaching 
ideal, are ever prophesying of the incoming ideal. The to-day's, 
afire with life and love, assure us of a coming to-morrow. This 
world indicates another — a future world, which Spiritualists 
have not only re-discovered, but have quite fully described. 

Spiritualism does not create truth, but is a living witness to 
the truth of a future existence. It reveals it — demonstrates it, 
describing its inhabitants — their occupations and character- 
istics. 

Hannibal crossed the Alps twenty centuries before Napoleon 
did. Napoleon reasoned that what man had done, man could 
do, and so with flags and banners unfurled he led the conquering 
French over the snow-capped Alps. And through all the cen- 
turies before and since Hannibal's time, through all the historic 
ages there were rifts in the clouds — there were vision?, and 
voices from the better land of immortality. Inspired mystics and 
; kilosophers testified alike to the reality of apparitions, the ap- 



6 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

pearancc of good angels and the fulfilment of dreams. An Angel 

— a spiritual being — appeared to Joseph in a dream announc- 
ing the coming of Jesus. 

Patriarchs, prophets, and seers in Abraham's and Isaiah's 
lime conversed with spirits and angels according to the Scrip- 
tures. Apostles, disciples, and the early Christians before and 
after John and Paul's time, consciously communed with the spir- 
its of those they had known on earth — and why should not we? 
Neither God nor his laws have changed. The reputed wise man 
Solomon, said: "The thing that had been, is that which shall 
be, and that which is done is that which shall be done, * * 
and whatsoever God doeth it shall be forever." (Eccl. iii — 14). 

If there were visions, trances, apparitions, spiritual gifts, 
and conscious spirit communications all through the past ages 

— why not now? Have the heavens over us become brass? and 
have angel tongues become palsied? These things did happen 
in the past — and they occur to-day. And few, if any, except the 
most illiterate — except the atheist, the impudent bigot and the 
iron-clad, creed-bound sectarists deny it. Spiritualism is the most 
unpopular among the ignorant. It is also very unpopular in sec- 
tarian club rooms, idiotic infirmaries, and State penitentiaries. 

When that highly inspired man of Nazareth preached his 
radical doctrines in Palestine, and performed his astonishing 
mediumistic works, crowds following him, some of the doubting 
cautious conservatives of those times asked the question: 
"Have any of the rulers of the Pharisees believed on him?" 
That is to say, have any of the reputed great and wise, believed 
on him ? If so, we, the driftwood — we the putty-headed policy 
men — will fall in line. Human nature is the same in all ages, 
and cowards are ever the same shrinking, apologizing, oily- 
tongued moral cowards. 

SPIRITUALISM IS NOT SPIRITISM. 

Spiritualism must be differentiated from spiritism. The 

terminologies of the two words absolutely necessitate, as every 

scholar knows, entirely different meanings. Chinese, Indians, 

.and Utah Mormons are spiritists, believing in present spirit com- 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 7 

rnunications. Most of the African tribes of the Dark Continent 
worship demons and believe in spirit converse, but certainly they 
are not intelligent, religious Spiritualists. 

Spiritism is a science — a fact — a sort of modernized Babyl- 
onian necromancy. The baser portion of its devotees, hypnot- 
ized by the unembodied denizens of Hades, divine for dollars. It 
is promiscuous spirit commrce with a high tariff. It is from the 
lower spheres, and morally gravitates toward the dark. It has 
its legerdemain, its tricksters, frauds, and travelling tramps. 
They should be exposed and shunned as you would shun dens of 
adders. Spiritism, I repeat, is a fact ; so is geology, so is mes- 
merism, so is telepathy, and so, also, is a rattlesnake's bite. 
Facts may be morally true or false. They may serve for pur- 
poses of good or direst ill. As an exhibition of wonders — as 
pabulum for sceptical atheists, who demand visible sight of the 
invisible infinite One, and insist upon a terrific clap of thunder 
to convince them of the existence of electricity, commercial spir- 
itism with its seeking for gold-fields, and hunting for "social 
affinities," with its attending, shadowy hosts, manifesting in ill- 
ventilated seance rooms, may be a temporary necessity and to a 
degree useful, but it legitimately belongs, with such kindred sub- 
jects as mesmerism, to the category of the sciences. 

But Spiritualism, originating in God who is Spirit, and 
grounded in man's moral nature, is a substantial fact, and in- 
finitely more — a fact plus reason and conscience ; a fact relating 
to moral and religious culture — a sublime spiritual truth ulti- 
mating in consecration to the good, the beautiful, and the 
heavenly. 

Spiritualism — a grand, moral, science, and a wisdom relig- 
ion — proffers the key that unlocks the mysteries of the ages. 
It constituted the foundation stones of all the ancient faiths. It 
was the vitalizing soul of all past religions. It was the mighty 
uplifting force that gave to the world in all ages its inspired 
teachers and immortal leaders. 

Rightly translated, the direct words of Jesus are (John iv : 24) 
— "Spirit is God." The spiritual is the real and the substantial. 



B WHO ARE THESE. SPIRIT UAEISTS? 

The spiritually minded are reverential. They are religious. 
Their life is a prayer. "The fruit of the Spirit," said the apostle to 
the Gentiles, "is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, 
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." Spiritualism, by what- 
ever name known, without the fruit of the Spirit, without re- 
ligion and moral growth, is but the veriest rust and rubbish ; and 
religion, by whatever name known, in any age, without Spirit- 
ualism and its accompanying spiritual gifts, is only an empty 
shell — an offensive creedal cadaver, that should be buried with- 
out ecclesiastical formalities. 

Spirit is God. And, Spiritualism while inhering in and orig- 
inating from God, does not center alone therein, nor rest entirely 
upon phenomena, but upon spirit — upon the spiritual and 
moral constitution of man, which constitution requires such 
spiritual sustenance as inspiration, prayer, vision, trance, clair- 
voyance, and heavenly impressions from the divine sphere of 
love and wisdom. Spiritualists, like the primitive Christians, be- 
lieve in God the Father and in the brotherhood of the races. 
They acknowledge the living Christ; they feel the influx of the 
Holy Spirit; they converse with angels; they cultivate the relig- 
ious emotions ;tbey open their seances, many of them, with prayer. 
They are richly blessed with visions and calm, uplifting ministra- 
tions from angelic homes. They see in every pure crystal stream 
a Jordan, in every verdure-clad mountain a present Olivet, and 
in every well-cultivated prairie a Canaan flowing with the milk 
and honey of spiritual truth — love to God and love to man. 

Spiritualism teaches salvation by character ; or by the life, as 
did Paul in his higher inspired moments, who said — "Being 
teconciled, we shall be saved by his life." (Romans v — 10). 

Spirit is God. And neither matter nor sea-slime nor pro- 
toplasm constitutes the basis of conscious life, but spirit — that 
is to say, spiritual or divine substance. Spirituality is the sub- 
stantial reality. And man is a spirit now — a spirit living in a 
material body, which body bears something of the same relation 
to the real, conscious, invisible man, that the husk bears to the 
corn, — chaff to the wheat. 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 9 

Evidently man is a trinity in unity, constituted of a physical 
body, a soul, or soul body, and a conscious, undying spirit — one 
uncompounded, indestructive divine substance — the Divine 
Ego. Advanced spirits are denominated angels. Spirits are but 
men and women divested of their mortal bodies. They have 
taken with them consciousness, memory, reason, sympathy, 
character. They walk by our side often, and yet unseen. Phi- 
losophically considered there is but one world, and that one 
world embraces the yesterdays, the todays, and the innumer- 
able to-morrows of eternity. 

Spiritualism, with its signs, wonders, visions, and healing 
gifts, was the religion of the apostles; of the post apostolic 
fathers, and of the primitive Christians up to the reign of Con- 
stantine, the murderous Roman Emperor. 

Spiritualism lias not only positively demonstrated a future life, 
but it has explained the philosophy and psychic methods of 
spirit intercourse; it has greatly liberalized the religious mind; 
it has encouraged the philanthropic reforms of the age, and it 
has given us a revised geography of the heavens and the hells. 
Mortals enter the future world with as absolutely substantial 
bodies as wc have here, only more refined and etherialized. 
There are different degrees of happiness there. Memory is the 
undying worm. There is intense mental suffering in those Cim- 
merian spheres. And yet, God builds no hells ; He burns no 
man's fingers here, damns no souls hereafter. Men are the arch- 
itects of their own hells ; they reap what they sow. Every child 
born into this world is a possible archangel or a possible demon ; 
his head touching the world of light, his feet the world of dark- 
ness. Man is a rational moral being and responsible being, hav- 
ing the power of choice. Punishment follows sin, as cause and 
effect. There is no escape. Divine punishment is disciplinary 
in all worlds. Christ Jesus and other martyred reformers still 
preach to undeveloped imprisoned spirits. The angels call, and 
souls are constantly coming up through tribulation deep. The 
door of mercy is not shut ; there is ever the opportunity of pro- 
gress from darkness to light. God is love. 



io WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

Modem Spiritualism — of which Swedenborg was the John 
the Baptist and that Christian people, the Shakers, the first 
organized body of men and women in America to fully realize 
the true meaning of the spiritual phenomena — has disclosed 
some of the unspeakable beauties awaiting us in the many man- 
sioned house of the Father. These mansions — aural spheres, 
enzoning stars and planets — are real, substantial, and adapt- 
ively fitted for the abodes of spirits, angels and archangels. 
These, aflame with love, are ever active in some educational or 
redemptive work. Heaven's rest is not idleness ; the soul's activi- 
ties are intensified by the transition. The future life is a social 
life, a progressive life, a heavenly life of growth, of love, of wis- 
dom, and of truth. 

NEGATIVELY. 

Intelligent, cultured Spiritualists do not deny the existence 
of God-- do not deny the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, the 
mediumistic man and martyi, overshadowed and infilled with 
the Christ-spirit — do not deny the Holy Spirit of love and wis- 
dom, the quickening Spirit of truth — do not deny the necessity 
of repentance, of prayer, of faith, of religion, of abiding trust, 
and the importance of living a conscientious, spiritual and holy 
life. 

Spiritualism is not, as aforesaid, materialism, but on the con- 
trary, is right the reverse of materialism, considering Spirit the 
basic foundation of all things, in all worlds. 

Spiritualism, I repeat, is not spiritism, that is, talking with 
the dead for curiosity, for fleshly gratification, for selfish gain, 
for ambitious ends, or for unworthy, amusing, and irreligious 
purposes. If this was the witch-spiritism that Moses con- 
demned, or disapproved of, he did well. It should be discour- 
aged, condemned to-day as unworthy of rational, royal-souled 
men and women. 

Spiritualism is not secular socialism, in the anarchist sense of 
that word ; but Spiritualism is of God, and the mightiest, divinest 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? n 

word in the universe, except God or the Christ of God. The cor- 
ner stone, the foundation pillar of Spiritualism is Spirit, and God 
is Spirit, essential and immutable. The philological scale runs 
thus: Spirit, spiritual, Spiritualism The spiritually-minded 
man is more than a mere, conscious spirit-man. All are spirit- 
men now, living in a spirit or etheric world, but not in a spiritual 
world, nor in that exalted heavenly state of love and purity. 

Spiritualism, in its broadest sense, is a knowledge of every- 
thing pertaining to the spiritual nature of human beings. It is 
cosmopolitan, eclectic, uplifting, and heaven-inspiring. Spirit- 
ualists, being believers in the Christ, have the New Testament 
promised spiritual gifts — the gift of converse with the so-called 
dead, the gifts of healing, the gift of tongues, the gift of clair- 
voyantly "descerning the spirits," and other gifts spoken of in 
the ancient scriptures. Spiritualists, believe in the great law of 
evolution. They teach that there is sweet reward for well-doing 
and certain punishment for every wrong action ; and that all the 
good and divine that is attained here, will be retained when 
entering the spiritual world ; that we are building now, by our 
conduct and characters, our homes in the future state of immor- 
tality. 

When the genuine Spiritualism is generally recognized, and 
becomes, as it will, the universal religion, — when it becomes act- 
ualized and out-wrought through the personal lives of earth's 
surging millions, it will no longer be selfishly said, "mine — 
mine," but ours, yours, all who appropriate it for holy uses. This 
is the resurrection — a spiritually exalted resurrection state in 
this present life. It is Christ — the living Christ within. It is 
divine altruism. 

I repeat, when Spiritualism in its divinest aspects is literally 
practiced, our country will be the universe, our home the world, 
our rest wherever a human heart beats in sympathy with our 
own, and the highest happiness of each will be altruism. Then, 
when this Christly Spiritualism abounds, will the soil be as free 
for all to cultivate as the air to breathe ; gardens will blossom 
and bear fruit for the most humble ; and orphans will find homes 



1:2 WHO -ARE THESE SUI RITUALISTS ? 

of.tenderest sympathy in all houses. This is Spiritualism, pure, 
simple, and practical. I invite other sectarian religionists as 
well as devil-intoxicated Seventh-day Adventists to ground their 
ecclesiastical weapons of rebellion, to do works meet for repent- 
ance, and to come to us — America's Mount Zion — and we will 
do them good. 

WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

In the above statement or definitions of Spiritualism, I speak 
for myself only — not others. Spiritualists have no Roman 
Pope — no cast-iron creed and they desire to build up no new 
sect. 

When Jesus of Nazareth preached his radical doctrines of 
the Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man and the present 
ministry of angels and spirits, the cautious conservative scribes 
and the synagogue Jews inquired — "Have any of the rulers 
of the Pharisees believed on him?" That is to say, have any of 
the Rabbis — any of the reputed great and wise believed on him? 
If so, we the driftwood, will fall in line. Human nature is the 
same in all ages, and moral cowards are ever, cringing cowards. 
Though Spiritualists number millions upon millions in all en- 
lightened countries — and though there are more or less Spirit- 
ualists in every church in the land, (unless it be that little seven- 
by-nine side issue — the Seventh-day Second Adventists) — 
there are those who ask half sneeringly, "W r ho are these Spirit- 
ualists ?" My brief reply is : They constitute the thoughtful 
brains of the world. I repeat, the brainiest people of the world 
to-day are straight out-and-out Spiritualists, or favorably in- 
clined to Spiritualism. They are the cultured. They are the in- 
spired. They stand upon the mountain top. They live in the 
sunlight of eternal truth. Take among the giant-minded thou- 
sands the following . 

ALFRED R. WALLACE, F. G. S., F. R. S., LL. D., D. 
C. L., author, scientist, and naturalist, who for his great scien- 
tific achievements the late Queen pensioned, pointedly says : 



VVHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 13 

"My position, therefore, is that the phenomena of Spiritualism, 
in their entirety, do not require further confirmation. They are 
proved quite as well as any facts are proved in other sciences.'' 

* ^s :fc :fc ^ ^c 

"'Up to the time when I first became acquainted with the 
facts of Spiritualism I was a confirmed, philosophical skeptic, 
rejoicing in the works of VoJtaire, Strauss, and Carl Vogt ; ,and 
an ardent admirer — as I am still- — of Herbert Spencer. I was 
so thorough and confirmed a materialist that I could not at that 
time find a place in my mind for the conception of spiritual exist- 
ence or for any other agencies in the universe than matter and 
force. Facts, however, are stubborn things. . . . The facts 
beat me. They compelled me to accept them as facts long be- 
fore I could accept the spiritual explanation of them. . . . 
Those who believe as 1 do — that spiritual beings can and do 
(subject to general laws and for certain purposes) communicate 
with us — must see in the steady advance of inquiry the assur- 
ance that, so far as their beliefs are logical deductions from the 
phenomena they have witnessed, those beliefs will at no distant 
date be accepted by all truth-seeking inquirers." 

SIR WILLIAM CROOKES, F. R. S., editor of the London 
"Quarteily Journal of Science," Fellow of the Royal Society, 
Discoverer of the Sodium Amalgam Process, Inventor of the 
Radiometer. Otheoscope, Past President British Chemical So- 
ciety, Gold Medallist French Academy of Sciences, says : "That 
certain physical phenomena, such as the movement of material 
substances, and the production of sounds resembling electric 
discharges, occur under circumstances in which they cannot be 
explained by any physical law at present known, is a fact of 
which I am as certain as I am of the most elementary facts in 
chemistry." 

In his book, "Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritual- 
ism," he states his conviction of the fact of an intercommunion 
between the dwellers of the visible and the invisible worlds. 

"If it had not been for Professor William Crookes, the dis- 
coveries of Professor Roentgen would not have been made. 



14 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

This man who paved the way for the recent developments in 
photographic science has been widely known for years, and there 
are few men who have achieved more brilliant results in the 
laboratory than the discoverer of the 'tube' which is just now 
figuring so prominently in all the experimental work with the 
new light which makes the photography of concealed things pos- 
sible." 

Professor Crookes was born in London about 64 years ago, 
and in his boyhood became interested in photography. He took 
a course in the Royal College of Chemistry under Dr. Hoffman, 
and soon became assistant to the tutor. At 22 he was appointed 
superintendent of the Radcliffe observatory at Oxford. In 1859 
lie founded the "Chemical News," and in 1864 became the editor 
of the "Quarterly Journal of Science," and contributed many 
valuable papers to the publication. 

Professor Crookes was indefatigable in original research. 
He discovered the force and invented the radiometer. In recog- 
nition of his discovery of the new metal, thallium, he was made a 
Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1877 he invented the othescope, 
and in the same year, in a paper read before the Royal Society, 
he said that he had succeeded in obtaining a vacuum no nearly 
perfect that the pressure in it was only .0000004 of an atmos- 
phere. It was this discovery that made possible the incandes- 
cent electric light. He has written many scientific books, each 
one of which is considered of great value. His name was brought 
before the public generally in 1870, when he undertook an inves- 
tigation of the physical phenomena of Spiritualism. His book 
on the results of those experiments was widely read at the time 
of its publication, but while the scientific world placed the high- 
est value on his experiments in other lines it paid no attention to 
his investigations on the occult side of nature. They were too 
bigoted. "Too many of these professed scientists do little be- 
sides strut around with cigar stubs in their mouths, beer in their 
stomachs and old, warty barnacles upon their backs." Profes- 
sor Crookes is certainly the most patient experimenter of mod- 
ern times, and his name can never be disassociated with Spirit- 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 15 

ualism and the Roentgen ray because his discovery was its basis. 

C. F. VARLEY, the distinguished English electrician, chief 
engineer to the Electric and International Telegraph Company; 
assistant in the construction of the Atlantic telegraphy, in con- 
nection with Sii Michael Farady and Sir William Thomson, the 
first to demonstrate the principles governing the transmission of 
electricity through long deep-sea cables. Writing in 1880, he 
said, in "The London Spiritualist:" 

"Twenty-five years ago I was a hard-headed unbeliever. 
. . . Spirit phenomena, however, suddenly and quite unex- 
pectedly, were soon after developed in my own family. . . . 
This led me to inquire and to try numerous experiments in such 
a way as to preclude, as much as circumstances would permit, 
the possibility of trickery and self-deception. 

"That the phenomena occur there is overwhelming evidence, 
and it is too late now to deny their existence. Having experi- 
mented with and compared the forces with electricity and mag- 
netism, and after having applied mechanical and mental tests, I 
entertain no doubt whatever that the manifestations which I 
have myself examined were not due to the operation of any of 
tiie recognized physical laws of nature, and that there has been 
present on the occasions above-mentioned some intelligence 
other than that of the medium and observers." 

M. LEON FAVRE, Consul General of France, and brother 
of Jules Favre, the eminent French Senator, says : 

"I have long, carefully, and conscientiously studied Spiritual 
phenomena. Not only am I convinced of their irrefutable real- 
ity, but I have also a profound assurance that they are produced 
by the spirits of those who have left earth ; and further that they 
only could produce them. I believe in the existence of an invis- 
ible world corresponding to tfie world around us. I believe that 
the denizens of that world were formerly residents on this earth, 
and I believe in the possibility of inter-communion between the 
two worlds." 

On my way to Constantinople a number of years since to fill 
a Consular position under General Grant, I was his guest for a 



16 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

week in Paris, witnessing the manifestations in his own parlors. 
I shall never forget the kindness of the Consul's son who accom- 
panied me as a guide to Versailles and other cities in France, 
sight-seeing. 

J. HERMAN FICHTE, the distinguished philosopher and 
metaphysician, writing of Baron Guldenstubbe, of Stuttgart, 
said: "As to my present position in regard to Spiritualism, I 
have to say that I have come to the conclusion that it is abso- 
lutely impossible to account for these phenomena, save by as- 
suming the action of superhuman influences, or unseen spirit in- 
telligences." 

PROFESSOR DE MORGAN, at one time London's great- 
est mathematician, says : "I have both seen and heard, in a 
manner which would make unbelief impossible things called spir- 
itual which can not be taken by a rational being to be capable 
of explanation by imposture, coincident, or mistake. The phys- 
ical explanations which I have seen are miserably insufficient." 

PROFESSOR CHALLIS, F. R. S., the late Plumerian Pro- 
fessor of Astronomy at Cambridge, stated his opinion in a let- 
ter to the "Clerical Journal," of June, 1862, as follows : 

"I have been unable to resist the large amount of testimony 
to such facts, which has come from many independent sources, 
and from a vast number of witnesses. ... In short, the tes- 
timony has been so abundant and consentaneous, that either the 
facts must be admitted to be such as are reported, or the possi- 
bility of certifying facts by human testimony must be given up." 

M. THIERS, ex-President of the French Republic, ex- 
claimed : "I am a Spiritualist, and an impassioned one, and I 
am anxious to confound Materialism in the name of science and 
good sense." 

CAMILLE FLAMMARION, .well-known in scientific cir- 
cles as an astronomer and member of the Academie Francaise, 
thus testifies to the truth of Spiritualism : 

"I do not hesitate to affirm my conviction, based on per- 
sonal examination of the subject, that any scientific man who 
declares the phenomena denominated 'magnetic,' 'somnambulic/ 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 17 

'mediumic,' and others not yet explained by science, to be 'im- 
possible,' is one who speaks without knowing what he is talking 
about ; and also any man accustomed, by his professional avoca- 
tions, to scientific observation — provided that his mind be not 
biased by pre-conceived opinions, — may acquire a radical and 
absolute certainty of the reality of the facts alluded to." He 
further remarks : "Although Spiritualism is not a religion but 
a science, yet the day may come when religion and science will 
be reunited in one single synthesis." 

DR. LOCKHART ROBERTSON, long one of the editors 
of the "Journal of Mental Science," a physician who, having 
made mental disease his special study, would not easily be taken 
in by any psychological delusions. His testimony to the reality 
of the spiritual phenomena is most distinct and positive. 

SERJEANT COX, an Assistant Judge of the Middlesex 
Sessions, London. President of the Psychological Society of 
Great Britain, getting satisfactory proofs of independent writing 
through a distinguished medium, wrote of it thus August 8, 
1876: 

"I can only say that I was in the full possession of my 
senses ; that I was wide awake ; that I was in broad daylight ; 
that the medium was under my observation the whole time, and 
could not have moved hand or foot without being detected by 
me. * * That these spiritual phenomena occur it is vain to 
dispute." 

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, the son of a Swedish clergy- 
man, announced in the year 1743, that he had come into spiritual 
converse with a world of spirits, and he soon began publishing 
their revelations, and detailing thetr conversations with him. He 
declared that he had seen and conversed with some of the apos- 
tles, especially Paul, with Luther and others dwelling in a spirit- 
ual state of existence. "I have," he says, "for these twenty 
years or more, conversed daily with spirits and angels. They 
have human forms, the appearance of men, as I have a thousand 
times seen ; for I have spoken with them as a man with other 
men — often with several together — and I have seen nothing 



iS WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

in the least to distinguish them from other men. . . Lest any 
one should call this an illusion, or imaginary perception, it is 
to be understood that I am accustomed to see them when per- 
fectly wide awake, and in the full exercise of my observation. 
The speech of an angel, or a spirit, sounds like and as loud as 
that of a man; but it is not heard by the bystanders. The rea- 
son is, that the speech of an angel or a spirit, finds entrance, 
first, into a man's thoughts, and reaches his organs of hearing 
trom within." * * * In 1758 a revolution was attempted in 
Sweden. On the 23d of July in that year, Swedenborg was in 
Stockholm. On that day Count Brahe and Baron Horn were 
executed in the capital. Swedenborg did not lose sight of Brahe 
when he was beyond the axe, as the following passage in Scrip- 
tural Diary shows : 

"Brahe was beheaded at 10 o'clock in the morning, and he 
spoke with me at 10 at night; that is to say twelve hours after 
the exectuion. He was with me almost without interruption, for 
several days. In two days' time he began to return to his former 
life, which consisted in loving worldly things ; and after three 
days he became as he was before in the world, and was carried 
into the evils he had made his own before he died." 

PROFESSOR SHERER relates this: '-'Conversing with a 
companion one evening in Stockholm about the spiritual work, 
one of those present, as a test, said : 'Tell us who will die first.' 
Swedenborg at first refused to answer. Then, after seeming to 
be for a time in silent and profound meditation, he replied: 
'Olof Olofsohn will die to-morrow morning at 45 minutes past 
4 o'clock.' This prediction greatly excited the company, and 
one gentleman, a friend of Olof Olofsohn, resolved to go on the. 
following morning at the time mentioned by Swedenborg to the 
house of Olof Olofsohn, in order to see whether Swedenborg's 
prediction was fulfilled. On the way thither he met the well- 
known servant of Olofsohn who told him that his master had 
just then died — a lit of apoplexy had seized him and had sud- 
denly put an end to his life. The clock in Olofsohn's dwelling 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 19 

apartment stopped at the very moment in which he had expired, 
and the hand pointed at the time." 

JOHJSJ WESi EV, Lhc founder of Methodism, was a firm be- 
liever in the spiritual phenomena. Prof. A. B. Hyde, D. D., 
author and professor of Greek in the Denver University, says 
in his work on Methodism: "During these years strange 
'noises' were heard at the Epworth parsonage. They were heard 
like the whistling of the wind outside. Latches were lifted; win- 
dows rattled, and all metallic substances rang tunefully. In a 
room where persons talked, sang or made any noise, its hollow 
tones gave ail the louder accompaniment. There was a sound 
of doors slamming, of curtains drawing, of shoes dancing with- 
out a wearer. When anyone wished to pass a door, its latch 
was politely lifted for them before they touched it. A trencher, 
untouched upon the table, danced to unheard music. At family 
prayers the 'goblin' gave thundering knocks at the amen and 
when Mr. Wesley prayed for the King, the disloyal being pushed 
him violently in anger. The stout rector shamed it for annoy- 
ing children, and dared it to meet him alone in his study, and 
pick up the gauntlet there. Many, then and since, have tried 
to explain the cause. It was thought to be a spirit strayed be- 
yond its home and dime, as an Arabian locust has been found 
in Hyde Park. Of such things this writer has no theory. There 
are more things in heaven and earth than his knowledge or phi- 
losophy can compass. Only he is sure that outside of this world 
lies a spiritual domain, and it is not strange that there should 
be inter-communication."' 

The noises were first heard one winter's day in 171 5 by Mrs. 
Susanna Wesley, John Wesley's mother. She was in the bed- 
room and was startled suddenly by a clattering of the windows 
and doors, followed by several distinct knocks, three by three. 
At the same time her maid servant, Nancy Marshall, heard in 
the dining-room something that sounded like the groans of a 
dying man. 

The young women of the family became greatly alarmed. 
Mrs. Wesley informed her husband. Samuel Wesley, of the cir- 



20 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

cumstances and insinuated her belief in their supernatural char- 
acter. 

ROBERT SOUTHEY, in his life of Wesley, when speaking 
of these spiritual manifestations, states that they continued in 
the Wesley family for some thirty years, commencing in 1716. 
Dr. Priestly, the discoverer of oxygen, speaks of the Wesleyan 
phenomena as among the most remarkable in history. There 
is a record of them in the Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica 
by Samuel Babcock. Here is the closing paragraph : 

"I know not what became of the ghost of Epworth; unless 
considered as a prelude to the noise Mr. John Wesley made on 
a more ample stage, it ceased to speak when he began to act." 

Wesley himself in referring to his experience and conviction 
of the truth of spirit manifestations, said: "What pretense have 
I to deny well-attested facts because I cannot comprehend them? 
It is true that most of the men of learning in Europe have given 
up all accounts of apparitions as mere old wives' fables. I am 
sorry for it, and I willingly take this opportunity of entering my 
solemn protest against this violent compliment which so many 
that believe the Bible pay to those who do not believe it. I owe 
them no such service. They well know (whether Christians 
know it or not) that the giving ur> of these apparitions is in effect 
giving up the Bible ; and they know, on the other hand, that if 
but one account of the intercourse of men with spirits is admit- 
ted, their whole castle in the air (Deism, Atheism, and Material- 
ism) falls to the ground. 

"One of the capital objections to all these accounts which I 
have known urged over and over, is this : Did you ever see an 
apparition yourself? No ; nor did I ever see a murder, yet I be- 
lieve there is such a thing. Yet the testimony of unexceptional 
witnesses fully convinces me of both the one and the other. 
With my last breath will I bear testimony against giving up to 
infidels one of the greatest proofs of the invisible world — I 
mean that of apparitions confirmed by the testimony of all ages." 
John Wesley's journal contains a number of most thrilling ac- 
counts of spiritual phenomena. Some considered them miracu- 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 21 

lous, and a proof of Wesley's divine mission. It is a pity that 
so many Methodist preachers of to-day have so "fallen from 
grace" — the grace and wisdom of Wesley — as to deny present 
spiritual manifestations. It is a further pity, if not a sort of re- 
ligious dishonesty, that the later biographers of John Wesley 
omit direct reference to these marvelous phenomena, in which 
the Wesleys were firm believers. 

THE REV. DR. H. W. THOMAS, probably the ablest 
preacher in Chicago, recently said in a sermon : "The perfect 
vision should see in Spiritualism the essential truth of the con- 
tinuity of life and the possibility of communion between the two 
worlds. The phenomenal manifestations or forms of slate writ- 
ing, seances, and materializations are but incidents — but the 
accidents attending any form of faith should not be permitted to 
close the vision to the underlying realities. The fact of a con- 
scious intercommunion between the two worlds has become an 
established truth." 

PROFESSOR ROBERT HARE., chemist, physicist, and 
scientist, was born in Philadelphia, Jan. 17, 1781. In early life 
he became a student in the physical sciences, and before twenty 
years of age joined the Chemical Society of Philadelphia. He 
-discovered a year or two after, the oxy-hydrogen blow-pipe, 
named afterward by Professor Silliman, the compound blow- 
pipe. He was the first to render irridium and platinum fusible 
in any considerable quantity, and also strontium without any 
alloy of mercury. He also proved that steam was not condensi- 
ble when combined in equal parts with the vapor of carbon. In 
1 81 8 Dr. Hare was appointed Professor of Chemistry in the 
University of Pennsylvania, holding the office till he resigned 
in 1847. His course of instruction was marked by great origin- 
ality, and crowned with many discoveries. In 1816 he invented 
the calorimotor. Professor Faraday acknowledged the great 
superiority of Dr. Hare's instrument for intensifying heat. He 
was a frequent contributor to the "American Journal of Science," 
and he invented machinery for the purpose of exposing the spir- 
itual phenomena. But through careful and protracted study and 



22 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

investigation, he became a confirmed Spiritualist, though he had 
previously been not merely an agnostic, but a downright mate- 
rialist, believing in no hereafter. A few years after writing his 
great work in defense of Spiritualism he said : 

"Far from abating my confidence in the inferences respect- 
ing the agencies of the spirits of deceased mortals, in the mani- 
festations of winch I have given an account in my work, I have 
had even more striking evidence of that agency than those given 
in the work in question." 

JUDGE EDMONDS, in a letter dated New York, Feb. 12, 
1861, says: "I received a letter from Dr. Hare expressing a 
wish to see me on the subject of Spiritualism. He came and 
spent several days with me. Our investigations were somewhat 
different. He investigated as a scientist, and a natural philoso- 
pher, and 1 as a lawyer, but we both arrived at the same result. 
And what was singular was, that we had both of us gone into 
the investigation of what we thought was a hum-bug, and which 
we were confident we could detect and expose, and this with- 
out any preconcert between us, and without either of us know- 
ing the purpose of the other. 

"He told me that he had been all his life an enemy of the 
Christian religion, a denier of the possibility of revelation, and 
disbeliever in God, or in our immortality. He told me that he 
had gone so far as to collate and publish offensive extracts from 
the Bible, in order to impeach the validity of the so-called reve- 
lations. He brought the subject of Spiritualism before the 
American Scientific Association, meeting in Albany, and would 
have been treated rudely by his compeers, had it not been for 
the interference «of Agassiz." 

This distinguished scientist, Agassiz, prevailed upon them, 
says the Judge, "on account of his high character and important 
scientific attainments to hear what he had to say. . . I have 
said to him, 'Dr. Hare has all his life been an honest, sincere, 
but inveterate, disbeliever in the Christian religion. Later in 
life Spiritualism comes to him, and in a short time works in his 
mind the conviction of the existence of God, and of his own im- 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 23 

mortality.' . . He had reasoned thus : If my sister lives, as 
she has proven to me, I shall live also, and there is an immor- 
tality, and if an immortality, there must be — there is a God. 
'"But," said he, '"Judge, I do not stop there, I believe in revela- 
tion, and in a revelation through Jesus of Nazareth. I am a 
Christian !" . . . That evening I attended one of our pub- 
lic meetings with him. We both addressed it, and he made a 
public avowal of his belief in the revelations of the Bible, and in 
the Christian religion. J. W. EDMONDS. 

New York. 

VICTOR HUGO, that eminent literary celebrity, with intel- 
lect so ciear and radiant, and moral nature so highly developed, 
could not well avoid being a Spiritualist. Upon my second voy- 
age around the world I met him in Paris in a seance of the lit- 
erati, Mrs. Hoiiis-Billings being the medium. Hugo wept in 
gratitude when his risen son gave him a most satisfactory com- 
munication in written French, when she, an American, could 
neither speak nor write a line of French. 

In his work on Shakespeare, Hugo says, "Table-turning or 
speaking has been greatly ridiculed ; the ridicule is groundless. 
To substitute jeering for examination is convenient, but it is not 
very philosophical. As for me, I regard it as the duty of science 
to fathom all phenomena; science is often ignorant and has not 
the right to laugh. That which is unexpected ought always to 
be expected by science. It is its function to arrest it in its pas- 
sage and to examine it, rejecting the chimerical and establishing 
the real. Science has no other concern with established facts 
than to endorse them ; it is for her to verify and distinguish. 
All human knowledge is that of analysis ; that the false compli- 
cated itself with the true is no reason for rejecting the mass. 
Since when has chaff been a pretext for refusing the wheat. Root 
out the worthless weeds of error, but harvest the facts and leave 
them for others. Science is the sheaf of facts. 

"The mission of science is to study and probe everything. 
To elude a phenomenon, to refuse to pay it the attention due to 
il ; to bow it out ; to close the door on it. to turn our backs on 



24 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

it, laughing, is to make bankruptcy of the truth; it is to omit 
to put to it the signature of science. . . To abandon these 
phenomena to credulity is to commit treason against human 
reason." 

]n his "Toilers of the Sea," he writes: "There are times 
when the unknown reveals itself to the spirit of man in visions. 
Such visions have occasionally the power to effect a transfigura- 
tion, converting a poor camel-driver into Mahomet; a peasant 
girl tending her goats into a Joan of Arc. * * Those that 
depart still remain near us — they are in a world of light, but 
they as tender witnesses hover about our world of darkness. 
Though invisible to some they are not absent. Sweet is their 
presence : holy is their converse with us." * * * * 

"Man is an infinitely small copy of God. That is glory 
enough for me. I am a man, an invisible atom, a drop in the 
ocean, a grain of sand on the shore. But, little as I am, I feel 
that God is in me, because I can bring forth out of my chaos. I 
make books, which are creations. I feel in myself the future life. 
I am like a forest which has been more than once cut down ; the 
new shoots are stionger than ever. I know I am rising toward 
the sky. The sunshine is on my head. The earth gives me its 
generous sap, but Heaven lights me with the reflection of un- 
known worlds. You say the soul is only the result of your 
bodily powers. Why, then, is my soul more luminous when my 
bodily powers begin to fail ? Winter is on my head, but eternal 
spring is in my heart. There I breathe at this moment the fra- 
grance of the lilacs, the violets, and the roses, as twenty years 
ago. The nearer I approach the end, the more plainly I hear 
the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me. 

"It is marvelous, yet simple. It is a fairy tale, and yet it is 
historic. For half a century I have been writing my thoughts 
in prose and verse, history, philosophy, drama, romance, tradi- 
tion, satire, ode, and song. I have tried all, but I feel that I have 
not said a thousandth part of what is in me. When I go down 
to the giave I can say, like many others, I have finished my day's 
work; but I cannot say I have finished my life. My day will be- 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 25 

gin again the next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley : it is 
a thoroughfare. It closes on the twilight to open on the dawn." 

THEODORE PARKER wrote: "The party (Spiritualists) 
nas an idea wider and deeper than Catholic or Protestant; 
namely, that God still inspires men as much as ever." * * 
"Now, in 1856, it seems more likely that Spiritualism will be- 
come the religion of America, than in 156, that Christianity 
would become the religion of the Roman Empire. It has more 
evidence for its wonders than any historic form of religion 
hitherto. It is thoroughly democratic, with no hierarchy ; but 
inspiration is open to all. It admits all the truths of religion 
and morality in all the world's sects. * * Shall we know our 
friends again? For my own part, I cannot doubt it; least of all, 
when I drop a tear over their recent dust. Death does not sep- 
arate them from us here. Can life in heaven do it?" 

REV. J. CAMPBELL, M. A., St. Paul's Vicarage, Christ 
Church, N. Z., on Ascension Day, April 13, 1902, preached the 
philosophy of Spiritualism in these words: 

"The spiritual world is co-extensive with matter, extending 
right through the solar system ; and we know the spirit can pass 
through solid substances just as easily as through the air. A 
man who is a thousand feet below the surface of the earth in a 
mine, and is suddenly crushed by a fall of earth — his spirit is 
not held there : is passes into the spirit world, and is not hin- 
dered in the least degree by the tons' weight which may be upon 
the body. It makes no diiference, — just as ether passes 
through the earth, so spirit passes through the earth. The spirit 
world inter-penetrates the natural world. You and I are in the 
spirit world at the present moment. We are in the lowest stage, 
and shall remain there as long as we are anchored down by the 
body. After that we pass to another sphere, just that one we 
are fitted for by our sojourn here. We used to be taught (at 
least, I was) that there were only two places where the departed 
went — heaven and hell. Nothing wss said about an interme- 
diate state, and yet the Bible is full of such teaching. . . . 

"It is about those who are dead (as we say) that I wish to 



26 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISES? 

speak. I said just now that they are not dead, — we must not 
regard them as dead. 'God is not the God of the dead, but of 
the living.' There they are, in the spirit world; some in 'sunny 
Paradise/ yet not so very far away from us. To some it is even 
permitted to visit this earth again. They have under certain cir- 
cumstances appeared to those upon earth in physical form. It 
was so in the days of the prophets, it was so in the days of 
Christ, and it is so now. You remember the case of the prophet 
Samuel (recorded in the first Book, the 28th chapter, 14th 
verse), when he appeared to King Saul, and to the woman of 
Endor. And so, also, after the crucifixion, we are told that 'the 
bodies of many saints rose and appeared unto many.' (Matt, 
xxvii., 52 — 3). Very well, then, the first statement I wish to 
make is this : That the spiritual bodies of the departed are in 
the spirit world in different communities. . . There have 
been cases of the spirit going for a time to a higher sphere of 
the spiritual world — to Paradise, without the body dying. For 
example, St. Paul says he was caught up to the third heaven 
(II. Cor. xii., 2— -4) and he describes himself as a man in Christ. 
There are babes in Christ as well as men in Christ, and the babes 
are not in the same sphere as the men. They are not fitted for 
it any more than a child taken from an elementary school would 
be fit to associate with a university graduate. The spiritual pow- 
ers require developing just as the mental powers do. I should 
have no heart to go on if I did not believe that every fresh im- 
pulse that people receive here, mentally and spiritually, will be 
carried into Eternity, and place them in a higher sphere in the 
spirit world. . . 

"At death each one passes into the spirit world, into that 
sphere for which he is fitted. It may be a very low one, but 
there he is, sorrowing for the carelessness he has exhibited dur- 
ing his life time; for there is no getting away from that; there 
will be sorrowing until they receive the truth, but they go on 
rising higher and higher until they come in contact with the 
'spirits of the just made perfect.' There they are then, in the 
spirit woild — some, perhaps, very near to us, some higher, but 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 27 

each in that sphere that their life on earth prepared them for. 
But they won't stay there ; they will rise higher and higher, as 
I said just now. We say we believe in the communion of saints ; 
we have said it to-day in the Creed. Very well, then, we believe 
that the spirits in the spiritual world have communion with ours. 
If we don't believe that, we have no right to say we believe in 
the communion of saints. We know those in the spirit world 
arc praying for us (Rev. vi.. 10), and we know that we on earth 
may pray for them. Now don't, because there are no dead to 
pray for ! But I do believe in praying for departed spirits. . . 
And as for those we look upon as lost — Oh ! that we had more 
charity! What errible doctrines used to be taught! That the 
poor heathen blacks who had never heard the Gospels went 
down to damnation ! How many are there who would teach 
that to-day? No, they pass away to the spirit world, and there 
they are taught, because the Gospel is preached in the spirit 
world just as it is here. This truth is brought before us by St. 
Feter, who says that Christ went and preached to the spirits in 
prison — literally, in keeping (I. Peter, iii., 19) — those in a low 
sphere, certainly, but capable of rising to a higher state. And 
St. Peter goes on to say, 'For this cause the Gospel was 
preached to those that are dead,' — that is, 'those departed this 
life.' (I. Pet. iv., 6). The Gospel was preached by Christ, and 
I believe that the Gospel is preached to the spirit world by the 
great preachers who have departed thither, and by all great and 
good reformers who lived the Christ-like life.' ' : 

Judge J. W. Edmonds was born in ITudson, U. S., 1799, and 
in 1819 entered the law office of ex-President Martin Van Buren. 
In 183 1 he was elected a New York State Senator. In 1843 he 
was appointed the Sing Sing State Prison Inspector. In 1845 
was appointed Circuit Judge. In 1847 was elected Judge of 
the Supreme Court, and finally in 1851 took his seat upon the 
bench in the Court of Appeals. In the discharge of his judicial 
duties, and fearless independent decisions, he was often com- 
pared to Sir Matthew Hale. Theologically, he was considered 
an agnostic, or a materialist, doubting any future existence. 



28 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

Hearing of the spiritual intercourse, he was inclined to treat it 
with dignified disfavor. But in November, 1850, his wife died, 
and he began to think more seriously of a future life, and rea- 
sons for faith in it. On one occasion he was alone reading about 
midnight, when he heard the voice of his wife distinctly. To 
use his own words, "I started as if I had been shot." He looked 
around him ; his lamp was lighted and the fire burning cheerfully 
in the grate. Studying and analyzing the operations of his mind,, 
he distinctly heard the voice again. It was a new experience. 
He began from this time to investigate the subject candidly, and 
even critically through various mediums ; and near the close of 
1 85 1, he became quite fully developed himself as a medium for 
visions, allegorical pictures, and direct communications from the 
spirit world written through his own hand. His daughter, 
Laura, also became a writing medium, and a trance medium with 
the gift of tongues. The Judge now openly avowed his .Spirit- 
ualism, lectured upon it in public, and wrote articles for it in the 
American and foreign press. He says that "Spiritualism has 
deepened my faith in God, and the spiritual life and teachings 
of Christ. It has also inspired me with the most kindly Chris- 
tian feelings towards all conscientious religionists of whatever 
name or party." . . The pride, as he was, of the New York 
bar for years, a jurist of unimpeachable integrity and keen dis- 
cernment, as well as an authority on international law, Judge 
Edmonds was not only a Spiritualist, but a spiritual medium 
with fine clairvoyant gifts. Sitting in his seance by the hour on 
Thursday evenings, and other evenings, I listened with intensest 
delight to the recital of his visions, as exalted as those of Peter 
or Paul, or of the inspired ecstatics appearing in the pre-Con- 
stantine period. 

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, author, anti-slavery 
speaker and pioneer "liberator," writing of Spiritualism, said: 
"The manifestations have spread from house to house, from city 
to city, from one part of the country to the other, across the 
Atlantic into Europe, till now the enlightened world is com- 
pelled to acknowledge their reality." * * "We have wit- 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 29 

nessed these surprising manifestations; and our conviction is, 
that they cannot be accounted for on any other theory than 
that of spiritual agency." 

WILLIAM HOWITT, the noted English writer and author 
of seventy volumes, was a writing and drawing medium. It gave 
me great pleasure to sit in one of his seances and witness his 
automatic drawings. In the English Dunfermeline Press 
Mr. Howitt wrote thus : "Who are the men who have in every 
country embraced Spiritualism? The rabble? the ignorant? the 
lanatic? By no means. But the most intelligent and learned of 
all classes." . . . "In America the shrewd and honest states- 
man and President was a Spiritualist. So were the Hon. Robert 
Dale Owen and Judge Edmonds." . . . "Longfellow now 
in England, and just treated with the highest honors of the Uni- 
versity of Cambridge, is, and has long been a Spiritualist." 

When Longfellow was upon his late European tour he at- 
tended Spiritual seances at the house of the Guppy's in Napies, 
and at the palatiai residence of the Baron Kirkup in Florence. 
I had this upon the authority of several eminent gentlemen in 
Italy. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, the martyred President, was a 
Spiritualist. He frequently attended seances at the residence of 
the Lauries in Washington. The daughter was a medium. It 
was in this same family that Miss Nettie Coburn was entranced 
by spirits purporting to be Jefferson, and the fathers of our 
country, and who piead of President Lincoln to free those four 
million slaves held in bondage. (See Mrs. Nettie Coburn-May- 
nard's work entitled, "Abraham Lincoln a Spiritualist"). Lin- 
coln's emancipation message was an inspiration from the spirit- 
world. Judge Edmonds, delivering an oration in Hope Chapel, 
N. Y., upon the life of Lincoln, gave the proofs of this. It is 
undeniable. 

In Judge Pierpont's addiess to the jury at the Surratt trial, 
he said: "I now come to a strange act in this dark drama — 
strange, though not new — so wonderful that it seems to come 
from beyond the veil that separates us from death. . . . "On 



30 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

the morning of April 14th Mr. Lincoln called his Cabinet to- 
gether. He had reason to be joyful, but he was anxious to hear 
from Sherman. Grant was here, and he said Sherman was all 
right; but President Lincoln said he feared, and related a dream 
— a dream which he had previous to Chancellorsville and Stone 
River — and whenever a disaster happened. The members of 
the Cabinet, who heard that dream will never forget it. A few 
hours afterward Sherman was not heard from — but the dream 
was fulfilled. A disaster had befallen the Government, and Mi. 
Lincoln's spirit by Booth's assassin hand had returned to God 
who gave it." 

Here is another version of this matter from a different 
source : 

SIR M. E. GRANT DUFF, in his "Notes from a Diary," 
tells the story as follows. It was told to the author by Charles 
Dickens, who had it from Stanton, the Secretary of War. 
Dean Stanley, who had also heard Dickens tell the story, cor- 
roborated the accuracy of the present version. Stanton had 
been called to a Council at the President's, but arrived some- 
what late. 

After the Council was over, I walked away with the Attor- 
ney-General, and said to him, "Well, if all Councils were like 
this, the war would soon be at an end. The President, instead 
of sitting on haif-a-dozen chairs and telling amusing stories, has 
applied himself to business, and we've got through a great deal 
of work." "Yes," said the Attorney-General, "but you were 
late. You don't know what happened." "No," I answered. 
"What did happen?" "All the rest of us," rejoined he, "were 
pretty punctual, and when we came in we found the President 
sitting with his head on his hand, and looking very unlike him- 
self. At length he lifted his head, and looking around us, said, 
"Gentlemen, in a few hours we shall receive some very strange 
intelligence." Very much surprised, I said to him, "Sir, you 
have got some very bad news." "No," he answered, "I have got 
no news, but in a few hours we shall receive some very strange 
intelligence." Still more astonished, I said, "May we ask, sir, 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 31 

what leads you to suppose we shall receive this intelligence?" 
He replied, "I've had a dream. I had it the night before Bull's 
Run. I had it on some other occasion (which Mr. Dickens had 
forgotten), and I had it last night." This was stranger than 
ever, and I said, "May we ask, sir, the nature of your dream?" 
He replied, "I'm alone — I'm in a boat, and I'm out on the 
bosom of a great rushing river, and I drift, and I drift, and I 
drift." At this moment came your knock at the door. The 
President said, "but this is not business, gentlemen. Here is 
Mr. Stanton,''" Five hours afterwards Lincoln was assassinated. 

DR. ADAM CLARK, the distinguished Methodist Com- 
mentator, was a Spiritualist. In commenting upon Saul and 
Samuel (see his Commentaries, pp. 298-299), says : 

"I believe Samuei did actually appear to Saul; and that he 
was sent to warn this infatuated king of his approaching death, 
that he might have an opportunity to make his peace with his 
Maker." 

"I beiieve there is a supernatural or spiritual world, in 
which HUMAN spirits, both good and bad, live in a state of 
consciousness." 

"I believe that any of these spirits may, according to the 
order of God, in the laws of their place of residence, have inter- 
course with this world and become visible to mortals." 

BISHOP JOHN P. NEWMAN, Gen. Grant's pastor in Wash- 
ington, D. C, is a Spiritualist. He attended seances with other 
distinguished persons in the palatial residence of Senator Stan- 
ford, San Francisco. From a printed sermon of his delivered 
at the funeral of an aged lady at. No. 561 Madison avenue, New 
York, I make the following extracts. 

"This venerable woman has gone, not to sing songs, nor to 
be idle, nor indifferent as to the scenes of earth and time. These 
sons and grandchildren over whom she watched with tenderest 
love here, she will continue to love and guide hereafter. The 
belief is all but universal that the spirits of the departed have 
returned to earth. The best of the Greeks and Romans were 



32 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

strong in this opinion, and those eminent in the church for learn- 
ing and piety have cherished this common faith. 

"Two worlds met in Bible times. The communications were 
as real then between earth and heaven as between New York and 
London to-day. From Adam till John of Patmos there was fre- 
quent intercourse between those who had gone and those who 
were left behind. 

"Angels dined with Abraham, were companions of Daniel 
in the lion's den ; they conversed with Mary ; they delivered Peter 
from prison; they visited Cornelius, the Roman Centurion. 
Celestial visions were given to Isaiah and the prophets, to Paul 
and the apostles, to Stephen and the martyrs, while Samuel and 
Moses and Elias were returned to earth. And why should we 
suppose that there is less interest in heaven for earth now than 
in the glorious past? We have the inspired record of the return 
of five persons to our earth, three of whom entered the spirit- 
world through the portals of the grave." 

"And there was another who was born here and went to that 
spirit-land and returned to us and remained with us from June 
44 A. D. till June 64 A. D., a period of twenty years; and six 
years after he made this declaration public. He said : T was 
caught up to the third heaven.' This is levitation as taught in 
1 Kings xviii : 12; Ezekiel iii: 14; in Acts viii: 39-40. He went 
not only to the place of departed spirits, but to heaven, wh«re 
he hard unspeakable words. . . . Do not say if only one of 
our race and time would go and return and witness to us it 
would be sufficient? Most lawyers are satisfied with one good 
witness. The law is that two witnesses are sufficient to confirm 
a fact : but here are eight — Samuel, Moses, Elias, Christ, and 
four apostles. These eight witnesses are as good as eight hun- 
dred. 

"But do the communications between the two worlds con- 
tinue to this day? Let us not be deterred in answering this 
question, because a great Bible fact has been perverted for lust 
and lucre. Let us rise to the sublimity and purity of the great 
Bible truth, and on this day of sorrow console our hearts there- 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 33 

with. It was the opinion of Wesley that Swedenborg was vis- 
ited by the spirits of his departed friends. Dr. Adam Clark be- 
lieved that the departed spirits returned to earth." 

THE APOSTLES AND DISCIPLES of Jesus Christ were 
Spiritualists, jesus chose them because they had mediumistic, 
or spiritual gifts. Paul heard the spirit voice. Both Paul and 
Peter had trances, as do the mediums of to-day. And Jesus ex- 
pressly said: "He that believeth in me, the works that I do 
shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do." 
Again he said, These signs (various spiritual manifestations) 
shall follow them that believe." And these signs, gifts, and 
demonstrations of the future life did follow the early Christians 
for the first three centuries. Mosheim confirms this view, say- 
ing: 

"It is easier to conceive than to express how much the spir- 
itual powers and the extraordinary divine gifts which the early 
Christians exercised on various occasions, contributed to extend 
the limits of the church. . . . Though the gift of foreign 
tongues appears to have gradually ceased, yet other spiritual 
gifts, healings, prophecies, visions, and the discerning of spirits 
with which God favored the rising church, were, as we learn 
from numerous testimonies of the ancients, continued to some 
extent fo^ several centuries." 

IGNATIUS, native of Syria and pupil of Polycarp, declares 
that — 

'Some in the church most certainly have a divine knowledge 
of things to come. Some have visions; others utter prophecies, 
and heal the sick by laying on of hands ; and others still speak 
in many tongues, bringing to light the secret things of men, 
angels, and expounding the mysteries of God." 

Many confirmatory testimonies might be quoted from Cle- 
ment of Rome, Barnabas, Papias, Justin Apollinaris, Cyprian, 
Lactantius, and others of the earlier fathers. The Phrygian 
Montannus affirmed with great emphasis that "These continu- 
ous prophecies, healing gifts, tongues, and visions are the divine 
inheritance of the true Christian," quoting in confirmation the 



34 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

old Scripture words, "Where there is no vision the people 
perish." 

ST. ANTHONY, in one of his fiery sermons, exclaimed: 
"We walk in the midst of demons, who give us evil thoughts ; 
and also in the midst of good angels who give us heavenly 
thoughts. When these latter are especially present, there is no 
disturbance, no contention, no clamour; but something so calm 
and gentle that it fills the soul with gladness. The Lord is my 
witness that after many tears and fastings I have been sur- 
rounded by a band of angels, good spirits, and joyfully joined in 
singing with them." 

TAT1AN, in his orations against the Greeks, said : 
"Your poetess Sappho was an impudent courtesan, and sung 
her own wantonness ; but our women full of faith in Christ are 
chaste, and our virgins, at the distaff, utter divine oracles, see 
visions, and sing the holy words that are given them by inspira- 
tion." 

TERTULLIAN, with fierce authority, challenged the 
heathen (Roman orthodox religionists) to a trial of superiority 
in the matter of casting out demons, and the exercise of other 
spiritual gifts characterizing Christians. Among other facts, he 
referred to a sister's prophecies and very remarkable revela- 
tions. These are his words in the "De Anima :" 

"There is a sister among us who possesses a faculty of reve- 
lations. Commonly during religious service she falls into a 
trance, holding communion with the angels, beholding Jesus 
Himself, hearing divine mysteries explained, reading the hearts 
of some person, and administering to such as require it. When 
the Scriptures are read or psalms sung, spiritual beings minister 
visions to her. We were speaking of the soul once, when our 
sister was in the spirit [entranced] ; and, the people departing, 
she then communicated to us what she had seen in her ecstasy, 
which was afterwards closelv inquired into and tested. She de- 
clared she had seen a soul in bodily shape, that appeared to be 
a spirit, neither empty nor formless, but so substantial that it 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 35 

might be touched. It was tender, shining, of the color of the 
air, but in everything resembling the human form." 

DR. PHILIP SCHAFF, the greatest of modern church his- 
torians, wrote (Church History, Vol. III., 465) : "Clairvoyance, 
magnetic phenomena, and unusual states of the human soul are 
full of deep mysteries, and stand nearer the invisible spirit 
world than the everyday mind of the multitude suspects." 

DR. ROBERT CHAMBERS, F. R. S., LL. D., the famous 
writer, publisher, and author of ''Vestiges of Creation," Cyclo- 
pedia of English literature, etc., was born in Peebles, .Scotland, 
and after due investigation became a Spiritualist, writing thus : 

"Already Spiritualism, conducted as it usually is, has had a 
prodigious effect throughout America, and partly in the old 
world also, in redeeming multitudes from hardened atheism and 
materialism, proving to them, by the positive demonstration 
which their positive cast of mind requires, that there is another 
world, that there is a non-material form of humanity, and that 
many miraculous things which they had hitherto scoffed at are 
true." "I have for many years known that these phenomena are 
real, as distinguished from imposture; and when fully accepted 
will revolutionize the whole frame of human opinion on many 
important matters." 

The noted William Howitt, in a letter written to the "Spirit- 
ual Magazine," London, Jan. 2, 1861, says: "Dr. Robert Cham- 
bers has been making an extensive tour of the United States. 
I saw him the other day and asked him, 'What of the Spiritual- 
ism in the American States?' He replied, "I have studied that 
question wherever 1 have gone, and the result was most satis- 
factory. There the great fight is nearly over ; you hear little 
comparatively, said of it, but you find it in all the churches. It 
has given new evidence, new life, a new leaven to Christianity 
there. It has destroyed much bigotry and sectarian feeling; it 
has wonderfully quickened the pulse of the religious heart, and 
spread a sounder and nobler tone of faith, a more palpable senti- 
ment of "peace on earth and good will towards man." 

GEORGE H. HEPWORTH.— It gave me a great pleasure 



36 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

while recently in New York to have a most interesting interview 
with Mrs. Hepworth, wife of the late Mr. George H. Hepworth, 
writer of those very excellent Sunday sermons appearing in the 
New York Herald. He was for seventeen years on the staff of 
this great New York daily, and seven years a member of the 
Council. It was well-known in journalistic circles that he was 
a Spiritualist. Mrs. Hepwoith assured me during our conversa- 
tion that he was conscious of the presence of invisible helpers 
when preparing his Sunday sermons for the "Herald." It gave 
him great pleasure to converse with the heavenly intelligences 
that inspired and influenced Mrs. Dearborn, of Brooklyn, — a 
very estimable woman. 

CHARLES DICKENS, in a letter to Forster, the author of 
the ''Life of Charles Dickens." says : ''When in the midst of this 
trouble and pam, I sit down to my books, some beneficent 
power shows it all to me, and tempts me to be interested ; and 
I don't invent — really I do not — but SEE IT and write it 
down." James T. Field, Dickens' American publisher, says 
Dickens told him that when writing "The Old Curiosity Shop," 
little Nell was constantly at his elbow, no matter where he might 
happen to be, claiming his attention and demanding his sym- 
pathy, as if jeaious when he spoke to anybody else. When he 
was writing "Martin Cliitzzlevvit," Mrs. Gamp kept him in such 
paroxysms of laughter by whispering to him in the most inop- 
portune places — sometimes even in church — that he was com- 
pelled to fight her off by mam force, when he did not want her 
company, and threatened to have nothing more to do with her 
unless she could behave better, and come only when she was 
called. 

In "Nicholas Nickleby," Smike asks Nicholas: "Do you 
remember the boy that died here?" (They were at Wackford 
Squeers' Academy). 

"I was not here, you know; but what of him?" 

"I was with him at night; and, when all was silent, he cried 
no more for friends he wished to come and sit with him ; but, 
began to see faces around his bed that came from home : he 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 37 

said they smiled and talked to him ; and he died at last, lifting 
his head to kiss them." 

This is an affecting picture, impossible without spirit pres- 
ence, but unmistakably indicating the clairvoyant condition in 
the hour of mortal dissolution. 

PRUDHOMME.— In announcing that the Nobel prize of 
£8,000, awarded every fourth year for the best poem, has been 
just gained by M. Sully Prudhomme, "Les Annales Poliques et 
Litteraires," a weekly journal with a circulation of 100,500, pub- 
lished in Paris, mentions that this celebrated poet is an avowed 
Spiritualist. His own admission of the fact is extremely frank 
and courageous. He says that he was very much perplexed 
by the facts established by such savans as Sir William Crookes 
in England, and by M. Charles Richet in France; and that some 
friends in whom he had the greatest confidence, resolved upon 
sending for Eusapia Paladinio, and on investigating the phe- 
nomena for themselves. They did so in the house of one of 
the party, and under conditions so rigorous as to preclude the 
possibility of fraud or delusion. He then related the various 
physical manifestations which occurred, and after having done 
so, makes the following statement: "My conviction is that I 
have assisted at some phenomena which I cannot connect with 
any ordinary physical law. My impression is that fraud in 
every case is more than improbable, at least in whatsoever con- 
cerns the displacement to a distance of heavy articles, previously 
placed by companions and myself. This is all that I can say. 
For my own part, 1 call everything natural which is scientifically 
established; so that the word ''mysterious" simply signifies that 
which is still surprising for the want of our ability to explain it. 
1 consider that the scientific spirit consists in the demonstration 
of facts, and not to deny a priori any fact which is contradictory 
of ascertained laws, and not to accept any which has not been 
determined by verifiable and certain conditions." Why do not 
the pseudo-scientific adversaries of Spiritualism imitate the ex- 
ample of M. Sully Prudhomme, and M. Victorien Sardou, and 
investigate before they deny and condemn? 



38 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

Mrs. Emma Rood Tutlie, poet and press writer; Eliza W„ 
Farnham, author of "Ideal Attained;"' Mrs. M. A. Livermore — 
all writers and believers in present angel ministries. 

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.— It is acknowledged by all 
biographical readers that Bonaparte believed implicitly in the 
occasional interference of spiritual agencies in mortal affairs. In 
other words, he stoutly believed in invisible presences, and was 
pronounced "very superstitious.'' 

One of the instances reported concerning him was, that on 
every great occasion — whether in public or private, in pros- 
perity or adversity — he was coutsantly visited by an unknown 
and, as many deemed, a SPECTRAL personage, of very diminu- 
tive size, and clothed — even to the mask on his face — in ver- 
milion red. Whether the celebrated "little red man" was a mes- 
senger from the higher or lower worlds, we do not pretend to 
say. The Emperor himself, and his most trusted confidants, all 
admitted that, at least, he was not a being of this world. It was 
on a certain occasion then, when Napoleon had been reviewing, 
with pride of heart, and almost super-human feelings of tri- 
umph, his magnificent army, stretched out in glittering lines, 
ranks, squares, and battalions, previous to his last great martial 
enterprise, that reining up his horse and gazing over the scene 
of pomp and power, he gasped forth his joy, triumph, and pride, 
in the oft-repeated word "Magnifique S Magnifique !" (magnifi- 
cent). As he spoke, a voice at his ear in clear and distinct tones, 
said, ''And yet ere another year shall pass away, all these glit- 
tering lines shall be strewed in the dust ; all these vast battalions 
shall vanish, and not a trace shall be left of the mighty army who 
now bend before you in human idolatry." Turning to gaze upon 
the audacious speaker, the Emperor beheld, with a shudder, 
THE LITTLE RED MAN standing at his bridle. "Prophet 
of evil !" he replied, "what can touch me ? What affect, or even 
disturb my power? and what force, under heaven, can conquer, 
or much less destroy, this superb army?" "Look up, and be- 
hold their destroyer!" answered the spectre. The Emperor 
gazed with astonishment, and then and there — in the twinkling 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 39 

of an eye — he beheld hundreds, then thousands, and, at last, 
millions of little tiny yellow birds, winging and fluttering in and 
out of the lines of the outstretched regiments ; at first they 
seemed only to dazzle his sight — at length their multitude in- 
creased to such dense masses that the air was filled with them, 
and every line, every casque, helmet, waving plume, and glitter- 
ing bayonet was hidden — not a form remained visible. The 
iittie yellow birds had quenched the sight from the eyes of the 
amazed holder. 'Fiend! or whatever other agent of the evil one 
thou may'st be," cried the Emperor, "tell me the name of those 
yellow birds — what are they?" "Public opinion," replied the 
spectre, and vanished. 

HARRIET HOSMER,the sculptor. Visiting her native coun- 
try, Mrs. L. M. Child says : 'T had an interview with her, during 
which our conversation happened to turn upon dreams and vis- 
ions. "I had some experience in that way," she said. "Let me 
tell you a singular circumstance that happened to me in Rome. 
An Italian girl named Rosa was in my employ for a long time, 
but was finally obliged to return to her mother on account of 
confirmed ill health. We were mutually sorry to part, for we 
liked each other. When I took my customary excursion on 
horseback I frequently called to see her. On one of these occa- 
sions I found hci brighter than I had seen her for some time 
past. I had long relinquished hopes of her recovery, but there 
was nothing in her appearance which gave me the impression 
of immediate danger. I left with the expectation of calling to 
see her many times. During the remainder of the day I was 
busy at my studio, and do not recollect that Rosa was in my 
thoughts after I parted from her. I retired to rest in good 
health and in a quiet frame of mind. But I awoke from a sound 
sleep with an oppressive feeling that some one was in the room. 
I wondered at the sensation, for it was entirely new to me, but 
in vain I tried to dispel it. I peered beyond the curtains of my 
bed, but could distinguish no object in the darkness. Trying to 
gather up my thoughts I soon reflected that the door was 
locked, and that I had put the key under my bolster. I felt for 



40 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

it and found it where I had placed it. I said to myself that I 
had probably had some ugly dream, and waked with a vague im- 
pression of it on my mind. Reasoning thus I arranged myself 
comfortably for another nap. I am habitually a good sleeper, a 
stranger to fear ; but do what I would, the idea still haunted me 
that some one was in my room. Finding it impossible to sleep, 
I longed for daylight to dawn, that I might rise and pursue my 
customary avocations. It was not long before I was able to dis- 
tinguish the furniture in my room, and soon after, I heard in 
the apartments below, familiar noises of servants opening win- 
dows and doors. An old clock proclaimed the hour. I counted 
one, two, three, four, five, and resolved to arise immediately. 
My bed was partially screened by a long curtain, looped up at 
the side. As I raised my head from the pillow, Rosa looked in- 
side the curtain and smiled at me. The idea of anything super- 
natural (spiritual) did not occur to me. Simply surprised, I ex- 
claimed : 

" "Why, Rosa, how came you here when you are so ill?' 

" T am well now,' she replied. 

"With no other thought than that of greeting her joyfully 
I sprang out of bed. There was no Rosa there ! I moved the 
curtains, thinking she might, perhaps, have playfully hidden be- 
hind the folds. The same feeling induced me to look into the 
closet. The sight of her had come so suddenly, that in the first 
moment of surprise and bewilderment, I did not reflect that the 
door was locked. When I became convinced that there was no 
one in the room but myself, I recollected that fact, and thought 
I must have seen a vision. 

"At the breakfast, table, I said to the old lady with whom I 
boarded, 'Rosa is dead.' 

" 'What do you mean by that ?' she inquired. 'You told me 
that she seemed better than common when you called to see her 
yesterday.' 

"I related the occurrences of the morning, and told her I 
had a strong impression Rosa was dead. She laughed and said 
I 'had dreamed it all.' I assured her that I was thoroughly 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 4 r 

awake, and in proof thereof told her that I had heard all the ac- 
customed househould noises, and had counted the clock when 
it struck five. 

"She replied, "All that is very possible, my dear. The clock 
struck in your dream. Real sounds often mix with the illusions 
of sleep. I am surprised tnat a dream should make such an im- 
pression on a ycung lady as free from superstition as you are.' 

"She continued to jest on the subject, and slightly annoyed 
me by the persistence in believing it to be a dream, when I was 
perfectly sure of having been awake. To settle the question, I 
summoned a messenger, and sent him to inquire how Rosa was. 
He returned with the answer that 'she died this morning at 5 
o'clock.' 

"1 wrote these statements as Miss Hosmer told them to me, 
and after I had shown them to her, I asked her if she had any 
objections to its being published without the suppression of 
names. She replied, You have reported the matter correctly. 
Make what use you please of it. You cannot think it more 
strange or more unaccountable than I do myself.' " 

Clairvoyance is a part 01 Spiritualism. 

D. D. HOME was in Rome in 1863, taking a deep interest 
in sculpturing, and known to be a Spiritualist medium. He was 
watched. On the second of January he was summoned before 
the Roman police, interrogated concerning his mediumship, and 
was ordered by the Governor of Rome, Matteucci, expressing 
the will of the cardinal and the pope, to leave the city on the 
ground of "sorcery," and the fascination connected with the 
practice of the black art. * * * 

It is well-known that the crowned heads of Europe attended 
Mr. Home's seances, — Napoleon, the Russian Czar, and others. 
In 1864 the great English Commoner, John Bright, Sir Chas. 
Nicholson, Sir E. E. Lytton, Sir Daniel Cooper, Dr. Robert 
Chambers, Mr. John Ruskin, and other celebrities, attended 
Home's seance at the residence of Mrs. MacDougall Gregory, 
a Scottish Spiritualist, living in Grosvenor Street, and widow of 
the distinguished Professor Gregory of Edinburg. Ruskin had 



42 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

a number of seances with Home, but his diplomacy overshadow- 
ing his courage, he was always cautious about avering any con- 
victions. His printed correspondence, always commencing; 
"My Dear Mr. Home," was veiy interesting. 

TOHiN] PLIGHT, i. a le-t-r dated "4, Hanover St., May 6, 
'64," addressed to Mr. S. C. Hall, relating to a seance with 
Home, writes: "Would Wednesday night, the nth inst., suit 
you for another sitting with Mr. Home? Mr. Tite, Member of 
Parliament, whom I think you know, has several times ex- 
pressed to me his great wish to be present on an occasion when 
manifestations may be expected. . . I hope you will be able 
to arrange with Mr. Home, and that he will not think me in- 
trusive. "JOHN BRIGHT." 

When in England in 1869, accompanied by Mr. Bailie, a 
noted poet, I spent an afternoon with John Bright at his 
elegant home in Rochdale. After conversing upon the genius 
of the English and American Governments, our small standing 
army, and the great expensive standing armies of Europe, I 
turned purposely to the subject of arbitration, which he favored, 
and later to Spiritualism, when Mr. Bright said, in substance :. 
"I have witnessed a number 01 D. D. Home's manifestations. 
They were truly wonderful. I can attribute them to no cause 
except it be the one alleged, that of intelligent, disembodied 
spirits. But,'" he added, with considerable caution, — a caution 
prominent among politicians and statesmen, — "I do not say that 
this is so ; but if it be true, it is the strongest tangible proof we 
have of immoitality." Is it cowaidice, or an overmastering 
timidity that seals so many siatesmen's lips upon this momen- 
tous subject, the demonstrated proof of a future existence? 

In D. D. Home's "Life and Mission," by his wife (p. 15) is a 
declaration signed by D. A. Wells, a Harvard University profes- 
sor; William Bryant, the distinguished poet, and others, describ- 
ing the manifestations witnessed in a seance room at Mr. 
Elmer's, Springfield, Mass., the closing words of which are, — 
"We know that (in this seance with D. D. Home) we were not 
imposed upon nor deceived." Speaking of the poet, Bryant,. 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 43 

brings to mind that when in Florence, Italy, the guest of Baron 
Kirkup, I saw in an elegant card-case the card of Longfellow. 
I said to the Baron : 

"I infer from this card that you have met the poet, Longfel- 
low?" 

"Yes, I beg to say that I was honored with his presence as 
a guest, and a most amiable and cultured gentleman he was. 
You see I have some of his poems, which I admire because they 
abound in Spiritualism," passing me the volume which had 
these lines and other passages marked. . . . 

"Did he clearly avow himself a Spiritualist?" 

"He assuredly did during several conversations, and further, 
greatly enjoyed some spirit seances in this room." 

My slowly uttered reply was : "I supposed him to be a Spir- 
itualist, but I was not aware that he had ever openly admitted 
it in America." . . . 

When travelling in the South of Europe a number of years 
ago, and visiting Rome, I was introduced to his Highness 
George, Prince of Soims, a most earnest Spiritualist. He had 
been converted to Spiritualism by sitting in the seances of Mr. 
Home at Ryde in 1862. I last met him on Pinciati Hill in Rome, 
the environments of which, were indescribably beautiful. Stand- 
ing by a fountain, where we were watching the silvery sprays, 
he remarked, "How sweet the thought that in the highlands of 
the hereafter fountains never cease to flow, flowers to bloom, 
nor are good-byes ever heard," and with these heartfelt words 
he extended the parting hand. It was warm with friendship. 

LORD LINDSAY, was a frequent attendant in Mr. Home's 
seances, while the Earl of Dunraven, and his son, then Lord 
Adair, made a record of eighty of these seances which were 
printed in a volume for private circulation. 

LORD HOWDEN, a former British Minister to Madrid, 
was a firm Spiritualist, giving D. D. Home letters of introduction 
to tiie British Ambassadors at Vienna and Constantinople. 

Home gave seances to the King of Wurtemburg. . . . 
Meeting Mr. Home again at Baden-Baden, he inquired about 



44 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

the "spirits," and expressed "deep gratitude at the light they 
had given him of futurity." 

PROFESSOR VON BOUTLEROW, of the Academy of 
Science of St. Petersburgh, attending Mr. Home's seances, ad- 
mitted after a long and scientifically conducted series of experi- 
ments, the genuineness of the phenomena, and came to the same 
conclusion that did the illustrious scientist and chemist, Sir 
William Crookes. 

ALEXANDER TL, Emperor of Russia, and her Majesty 
the Empress, invited Mr. Home to their Winter Palace, where 
they received striking and convincing tests and manifestations,, 
touching the Empire and the future Emperor. Alexander II.. 
so esteemed Mr. Home, and so fully accepted his spirit manifes- 
tations that upon Mr. Home's marriage he sent him a splendid 
ring, and setting of a magnificent sapphire surrounded with dia- 
monds. . . . 

Mr. Home, in writing upon this and other matters relating 
to Spiritualism and the Emperor, said : "His most gracious 
Majesty upon this, as upon every occasion, has shown me the 
greatest kindness, and I have the highest veneration for him 
not only as a monarch, but as a man of the most kind and gen- 
erous feelings." (This was written in 185S). 

COUNT ALEXIS TOLSTOY, a groomsman at Home's wed- 
ding, was a zealous Spiritualist. This Alexis Tolstoy, a poet,, 
was a name sake of the great novelist, Count Tolstoy. 

THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON had Mr. Home at the Tuil- 
leries several times to witness the spirit manifestations. The 
Emperor selected five personages of the court, taking their seats, 
at the table and placing their hands upon it. The table soon 
vibrated, then trembled, and was then lifted up from the floor. 
Then came raps upon the table. Responses were spelled out,, 
and the mental questions of the Emperor satisfactorily an- 
swered. 

The Emperor brought the Empress into the room, and sit- 
ting at the table. Soon, she said, "I felt the hand of my father 
in mine." 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 45 

"How could you distinguish it?" asked the Emperor incred- 
ulously. 

"1 could distinguish it among a thousand," answered the 
Empress, "from a defect in one of the fingers, just as it was in 
life. As it lay in mine I satisfied myself of this defect." 

The Emperor in his turn was touched by the hand, and veri- 
fied the fact of the defect referred to by the Empress. . . 

At another seance in the Tuileries, the Emperor and mem- 
bers of the Court, Prince Murat, Lord Dunraven, and other dis- 
tinguished persons, the massive table rose up and floated ; it 
would sometimes be very heavy, then light as a feather. Phe- 
nomena similar to this was witnessed by Sir William Crookes. 
(See 'Quarterly Journal of Science," 1871). 

At the third of the Tuileries seances, the light subdued, a 
hand appeared, moved across the table, lifted the pencil and 
wrote on a sheet of paper the single word, "Napoleon." The 
writing was the recognized autograph of the Emperor Napo- 
leon; the hand small and beautifully formed as his is recorded 
to have been. 

The Empress, moved by the sight of the hand, requested per- 
mission to kiss it ; and it placed itself to her lips, then to the lips 
of the Emperor. The hand was distinctly seen. This seance, 
like all others at the Tuiierics, was held in a good light." ("Life 
and Mission of Home," p. 78). 

It was reported that these marvelous spirit manifestations 
did not convince the Emperor Napoleon of the truth of Spirit- 
ualism, nor of the moral integrity of Mr. Home, to which Prince 
Murat replied as follows : "When you left the room, the Em- 
peror leaned forward with his arms on the table and said in the 
most impressive manned, 'Whoever says that Home is a charla- 
tan, is a liar.' " To the Duke de Morney the Emperor said later, 
had proof of these manifestations, and T am certain of what I 
have seen." ("Life and Mission of Home," p. 79). 

ABRAM H. DAI LEY (Brooklyn, N. Y.) is a writer, author, 
and distinguished jurist — a gentleman doing an extensive legal 



46 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

practice, and having convictions, has also the moral courage, 
like the eminent judge Edmonds before him, to defend them. 
In 1863 he was elected justice ot the Fourth District Court of 
Brooklyn. In 1875 he was elected Surrogate of the County of 
Kings. Judge Dailey has written several published essays upon 
hypnotism ; its relation to medico-legal jurisprudence. He was 
•a member of the psychological congress which convened at Chi- 
cago during the Columbian Exposition, where he read a volum- 
inous paper upon the celebrated case of Mollie Fancher of 
Brooklyn. Later, he published a book on her life. He is ex- 
President of the Medico-iegal Society of New York, and Presi- 
dent of the Lake Fleasant Spiritualist Camp-meeting. 

MISS MOLLIE FANCHER is not only a mere clairvoyant, 
but she has other spiritual gifts. Among other things her biog- 
rapher Judge Dailey reports : 

"Well, as I have said, my vision is not always the same ; much 
depends how I am feeling, and the weather conditions. Some- 
times the whole top of my head seems on fire with the influx 
of light ; my range of vision is very great, and my sight aston- 
ishingly clear. Then again it seems as if I was seeing through 
a smoked glass, and my vision or consciousness of things is dim 
and indistinct. Sometimes I can see all through the house" 
(p. 230). 

I am convinced . . . that it is not at all times necessary 
for her [Miss F.] to be in that [the trance] condition to exercise 
the phenomenon of so-called second sight. I have seen it mani- 
fested on several occasions (George F. Sargent, p. 105). 

It was my good fortune some twenty years ago to visit Miss 
Fancher in connection with Miss Rhoda Fuller, a Spiritualist 
medium, and niece of President Millard Filmore. Upon being 
introduced and taking our seats, she remarked, "I knew you 
were coming. I saw you as you opened the gate." Miss Fuller 
inquired, "How could you thus see us ?" 

She replied, "I see with my inner eyes, which are called clair- 
voyant eyes. I see people both in their bodies and out of their 
bodies. This is to me as much a marvel as it is to you." 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 47 

Though confined to her bed for long weary years, and unable 
to move at times only a hand, an arm or the neck, she seemed 
composed and comparatively happy. This visit made a very 
deep impression upon my mind, demonstrating the fact that a 
person can live in two worlds at the same time : the physical and 
the spiritual. 

TORQUATO TASSO.— To those well read in Italian history, 
Tasso's remarkable visions are well known. He was called the 
epic poet of his age. Corresponding with his friends, he fre- 
quently spoke of his spiritual visitations. Good spirits strength- 
ened and encouraged him, and bad ones vexed or tormented 
him; in fact, like many mediums to-day, he was at times ob- 
sessed. Here is what he wrote to a friend: 

"This day, being the last but one of the year, the brother of 
the Rev. Licino has brought me two letters from Vostra Sig- 
noria, but one has disappeared after I had read it, and I think 
the Spirit (il folletto) has carried it away, because it is that let- 
ter in which he is mentioned. This is one of those miracles 
which I have frequently seen in the hospital (of St. Ann, which 
was his prison) on which account I feel certain that it is the 
work of some sorcerer (mago) and I have many other proofs of 
it, but particularly of a roll of bread taken from before me, visi- 
bly, half an hour before sunset (a ventrite ore) ; of a plate of fruit 
taken from before me the other day when that amiable young 
Pole so worthy of admiration came to see me ; and of several 
other articles of food to which at other times the same thing 
•occurred when no one entered my prison ; of a pair of gloves, ot 
letters, and of books taken out of boxes that were shut and 
found on the ground in the morning, and others that were never 
found, and I know not what became of them. ... I will 
not conceal my miseries, that you, signor, may help me with 
all your force, with all your diligence, and with all your good 
faith. Know then that besides these miracles of the folletta, 
which I can describe at length on some other occasion, there 
are many nocturnal terrors, for being awake certain small flames 
(flamette) seem to appear in the air; and sometimes my eyes 



48 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

sparkle in such a manner that I have feared losing my sight — 
sparks have flown out of them visibly. I have seen likewise in 
the middle of the head of the bed shadows of mice which from 
any natural causes could not happen in that place ; and often 
I have heard whistles, tinkhngs, bells, and the sound of a clock 
which has often struck one." 

In a letter by Torquato Tasso, 1544, he says: 
"You know that I have been iil and have never been entirely 
cured; perhaps I have greater need of an exorciser than of a 
physician, because the illness is owing to magical art. Compas- 
sion ought to be felt for my long suffering. Of the folletto 
(spirit) I will still tell you some more particulars. The little thief 
has robbed me of many scudi ; I don't know how many, because 
I do not keep any account of them as misers do, but perhaps 
they amount to twenty. He overturns my books, opens my 
boxes, steals my keys that I cannot defend myself from him. 
I am unhappy at all times, but most at night." (See Baron Sey- 
mour Kirkup's letter, Florence, May 26, 1862. S. Magasin, 
London). 

ADIN BALLOU, Hopedale, Mass. — When lecturing some 
twenty-five years ago to the Spiritualist society in Cambridge- 
port, Mass., I exchanged Sunday services with the Rev. Adin 
Ballou, whom Count Tolstoi pronounces one of the "greatest 
and noblest men of America." Adin Ballou, though a clergy- 
man, had the moral bravery and independence to invesigate Spir- 
itualism, and when receiving evidences of its reality, he was 
courageous enough to express publicly his convictions. In his 
book he says : "I have seen tables and light stands of various 
sizes, moved about in the most astonishing manner by invisible 
agencies, with only the gentle and passive resting of the hands 
and finger, ends of the medium on one of their edges. Also 
many distinct movings of such objects by request without the 
touch of the medium at all. I have sat and conversed by the 
hour together with the authors of these sounds, and motions, 
by means of signals first agreed upon ; asking questions and ob- 
taining answers — receiving communications spelled out by the 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 49 

alphabet — discussing propositions sometimes made by them to 
me, and vice versa. I have witnessed the asking of mental ques- 
tions by inquirers, who received as prompt and correct answers 
as when the questions were asked audibly to the cognition of the 
medium. 

"1 have known these invisibles by request, to write their 
names with a common plumbago pencil on a clean sheet of 
paper, — half a dozen of them, each in a different hand. . . . 
I have requested what purported to be the spirit of a friend many 
years deceased, to go to a particular place, several miles dis- 
tant from that of the sitting and to bring me back intelligence 
respecting the then health and doings of a certain relative well 
known to the party. In three minutes of time, the intelligence 
was obtained, numerous particulars given, some of them rather 
improbable, but every one exactly confirmed the next day by 
personal inquiries made for that purpose. 

"I have been requested by the invisibles to speak on a par- 
ticular subject, at a given time and place, with the assurance 
that responses should be made on the occasion by knockings, 
approving the truths uttered, — all of which was strikingly veri- 
fied." 

BISHOP T. M. CLARK was a born Spiritualist. When I 
was lecturing in Providence, R. I., in 1866-7 (^ memory serves 
— I am not good at dates) I called upon Bishop Clark and had 
a most interesting conversation with him upon New England 
religious progress from John Calvin's and Cotton Mather's time 
up to 1848, the dawn of modern Spiritualism. The Bishop had 
met not long previous, Robert Dale Owen, at a watering place, 
and he kindly related to me portions of their conversation. The 
interview was deeply interesting, as two congenial souls had 
met. 

Bishop Clark, when residing at Hartford, Conn., attended 
Mr. D. D. Home's seances, closely investigating them in his 
own house. In a letter that the Rev. Dr. Clark wrote to Home, 
dated Hartford, June 2, 1854, occur the following passages : 

. . "I can imagine you looking out from your elevation 



50 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

in Roxbury upon the distant sea, and then up into the more dis- 
tant heavens to see who are looking down upon you from above. 
. . You have the pleasant assurance of having been the instru- 
ment of conveying incalculable joy and comfort to the hearts 
of many people; in the case of some you have changed the 
whole aspect of their existence. You have made dwelling places 
light that were dark before. . . My book is posted up to 
that last night in your chamber. Those tangible demonstra- 
tions cannot be recorded on paper." . . . 

Under date of Hartford, June 25, 1854, he again wrote: 

"How I wish you could drop in upon us this quiet Sunday 
evening. It seems hardly possible that we can ever have more 
of those wonderful scenes which we have passed through with 
you. When I recall the incidents as they occurred they appear 
almost too great to be believed. Do you get anything new — 
that is, anything different in kind from what we have experi- 
enced?" . . 

Having been away and engaged in more "worldly matters," 
lie again writes : "I have now a strong appetite for something 
a little spiritual." 

Yes, the clergy are hungering for things spiritual, which 
ithey cannot get from the manna of Moses nor from any cold 
dead forms and ceremonies. To get real soul food they are 
-obliged to go to mediums, intermediaries, or clairvoyant sensi- 
tives. 

BARON SEYMOUR KIRKUP.— Returning from a con- 
sular appointment in Asiatic Turkey, I went from Rome to 
Florence, as the guest of Baron Kirkup, 1309 Ponte Vecchio, 
Florence. The Baron spent hours and hours describing to me 
the manifestations through mediums that he had in his own 
house. Among other things he said : "Some spirits have been 
seen by my mediums when consciously awake as well as asleep; 
and some have been seen by myself. But the most remarkable 
of these manifestations (see "Spiritual Magazine, Vol. IV., p. 75) 
are the numerous "Apports," as the French called them, which 
Jiave taken place here — presents of all sorts, which are val- 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 51 

liable, brought to us and preserved by us with care, and others 
which we gave in return, — rings, lockets, etc., which have been 
carried away out of inaccessible, locked-up, and sealed rooms 
(only a window optn), and brought back by appointment by the 
spirits." Similar things we saw and had done both at Mrs. 
Fletcher's residence, Hawthorn, Melbourne, Australia, and in 
Mr .Stanford's room, Melbourne. 

Here in the Baron's drawing room I saw a copy of Long- 
fellow's poems, and Longfellow's card in the beautiful card case. 
Speaking of these poems to the Baron, he said: "You must be 
favored in America with such a distinguished poet being a Spir- 
itualist." 

My reply was, "'I did not know that he was a Spiritualist. 
Certainly, he had never publicly avowed his Spiritualism, al- 
though some of his poems abounded in straight-out and beauti- 
ful Spiritualistic sentiment." 

The Baron remarked, "Well, he conversed with me upon 
Spiritualism as other Spiritualists do, and enjoyed a seance with 
the medium then residing with me. So I had naturally sup- 
posed that he was a Spiritualist." Seymour Kirkup, a great 
student and Baron, openly avowed his Spiritualism, and opened 
his purse to the dissemination of the principles. 

REV. DR. LYMAN ABBOTT.— "I believe there is a spirit 
which death does not quench, but releases and makes efficacious. 
I derive my belief partly from the Bible, partly from the testi- 
mony of others, and partly from my own experience. I do not 
believe that those who have died have gone far away from us. 
They have passed beyond our ken, but we are not beyond theirs. 
If our eyes were open, who knows but that we could see those 
who have gone from us and yet have not gone from us?" 

BEDE, the venerable. — (Born 673, Durham, England), 
ecclesiastical historian, author, commentator, and metaphysician, 
exhibited his clairvoyance — his spiritual trust and spiritual life 
in dying. It was a calm, peaceful evening in the spring of 735 
— the evening of Ascension Day — and in his quiet cell in the 
monastery of Jarrow, as the historian informs us, that an aged 



52 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

monk lay dying. With labored utterance he tried to dictate 
to his scribe, while a group of fair-haired Saxon youths stood 
sorrowfully by with tears, beseeching their dear master to rest." 

This retiring recluse was the most famous scholar of his day 
in western Europe. Through him, Jarrow-on-the-Tyne had be- 
come the great center of literature and science, hundreds of 
eager students crowding yearly to its halls to learn of the illus- 
trious Bede. He was deeply versed in the literature of Greece 
and Rome, — he had written on medicine and science, and as- 
tronomy, and rhetoric, and was an advocate of the noblest 
thoughts of his age. His ''ecclesiastical history" is still the chief 
source of our knowledge of ancient England. But none of his 
studies were to him equal to the study of religion. None of his 
books of so great importance as his "Commentaries" on spirit- 
ual subjects. Even then as he lay on his deathbed he was feebly 
dictating to his scribe his superior translation of St. John's Gos- 
pel. 'I don't want my boys to read an error,' he said, 'or to 
work to no purpose after I am gone.' 

And these young men seem to have deeply loved the gentle 
old man. An epistle has come down to us from his disciple, 
Cuthbert, telling of what had happened on this noted ascension 
clay. 

"Our father and spiritual master," he says, "seems especially 
illumined, and has translated the gospel of St. John as far as 
'what are these among so many.' " 

"He began to suffer much in his breath, and a swelling came 
in his feet ; but seemingly inspired, he went on dictating to his 
scribe. 'Go on rapidly,' he said, 'I know not how long I shall 
hold out, or how soon the Master will send his angels for me.' 

"All night long he lay awake, and when day dawned he com- 
manded us to write with all speed what he had begun. . . . 
Angels are waiting. 

"There remains but one chapter, Master," said the anxious 
scribe, "but it seems very hard for you to speak." 

"Nay, it is easy — for the good angels give me strength," re- 
plied Bede. "Take up thy pen and write quickly." 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 53 

Amid blinding tears the young scribe wrote on. 

"And now, father," said he, as he eagerly caught the last 
words from his quivering lips, "only one sentence remains." 
Bede dictated it, and then looking up, exclaimed, "Oh, the 
brightness of their coming, — how sweet their music!" 

"It is finished, master," cried the youth, raising his head as 
the last word was written. 

"Ay, it is truly finished," echoed the dying saint, his face 
the meanwhile seemingly illumined with more than spiritual 
brightness — "Lift me up; place me at that window of my cell 
where I have so often prayed to the Father of lights, and to the 
ministering angels that do the Father's will." And with these 
words his beautiful spirit passed on to meet those loved ones 
who inspired him to the last moment Of his life. 

LILIAN WHITING, author of "Spiritual Significance," 
"The World Beautiful," "After Her Death," "From Dreamland 
Sent," "Kate Field, — a Record," "Study of Mrs. E. B. Brown- 
ing," etc., in writing of Mrs. Piper's alleged "confession," says 
that Mrs. Piper "clearly pointed out that when she used the 
term telepathy, in explanation of the message that came through 
her organism, she meant telepathy from those in the Unseen, 
and not from persons in this world, — as she was made to appear 
to say, in the interview.' Mrs. Piper also declared that she 'did 
not say that she 'denied the spiritualistic hypothesis.' " * * 
"Spiritualism has not come to destroy, but to fulfil. It has come 
to fulfil the hopes and longings of human life and to inform them 
with the vitality of faith and conviction. It has come to trans- 
form the present. Has not the time arrived when we must all 
be 'strenuous' in our unceasing combat of the idea that the faith 
of Spiritualism begins and ends with a belief in communication 
between those in the Seen and in the Unseen? That is but one 
fact in a chain of noble and comprehensive philosophy and a 
philosophy that holds in solution the entire eternal processes 
of life. It is as if one regarded conversation, or the writing of 
letters, or the sending of telegrams, as comprehending the entire 
life of humanity, whereas mutual communication is one fact only 



54 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

in a complicated system of living. Now Spiritualism, in its true 
and entire sense, includes all economic and social advances 
of the race ; all the inventions and discoveries of science ; all 
the higher truths that may be embodied in literary and in 
ethical expression; because the initial condition of all these 
various trends of expression that make up progress is that of 
a true conception of the nature of man and his relation to the 
visible universe. When we realize the absolute oneness of ex- 
istence; that death is no break, no crisis, but merely an event 
in life ; when we realize the nature of the process, — 
'Eternal process moving on ; 
From state to state the spirit walks,' — 
we find in it a new encouragement to activity, a new stimulus for 
all important acquirement, and a new discrimination of values 
regarding the significant pursuits of life." 

REV. DR. DE COSTA says : We do not know how the com- 
munication is maintained, but we may believe that we have com- 
munion with the departed; that in going away they come near; 
that in birth is comprehension and in death expansion. The 
dead may prove as valuable to us as the living. It is unfortunate 
that the Church does not make as much of this thought as it 
might, or should. — New York Herald. 

GERALD MASSEY, poet and author, says : Spiritualism 
will make religion infinitely more real, and translate it from the 
domain of belief to that of life. It has been to me, in common 
with many others, such a lifting of the mental horizon and a let- 
ting in of the heavens — such a transformation of faiths into 
facts — that I can only compare life without it to sailing on 
board ship with hatches battened down, and being kept prisoner, 
cribbed, cabined, and confined, living by the light of a candle — 
dark to the glory overhead, and blind to a thousand possibilities 
of being — and then suddenly on some starry night allowed to 
go on deck for the first time to see the stupendous mechanism of 
the starry heavens all aglow with the glory of God, to feel that 
vast vision glittering in the eyes, bewilderingly beautiful, and 
drink in new life with every breath of this wondrous liberty, 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 55 

which makes you dilate almost large enough in soul to fill the 
immensity which you see around you. 

JOEL TIFFANY (Chicago), author, essayist, and an emi- 
nent jurist. 

RT. REV. WILLIAM H. MORELAND, Bishop, Sacra- 
mento. Cal., says: 

As a Christian and a spiritual being I believe that, communi- 
cations with the spiritual world are reasonable and to be ex- 
pected; indeed, that our whole religion reveals it and requires 
it, and that as a matter ot fact, we practice intercourse with the 
spiritual world every day of our lives. 

HENRY C. WRIGHT, anti-slavery author and lecturer, 
says : 

'"Spiritualism demonstrates the continuity of life here and 
hereafter; and if its principles were lived slavery of all kinds 
would soon die and liberty and love would reign supreme." 

REV. JESSE BABCOCK FERGUSON, writer, author, and 
eloquent church pastor in Nashville, Tennessee, was induced by 
one of the most cultured members of his church to investigate 
the spiritual phenomena. He so did. They interested him from 
the first deeply. He could not resist the repeated evidences. 
He became a Spiritualist and preached it under its proper name 
from his pulpit. Heresy became the cry. He left a fine salary, 
joined the Davenport brothers, and traveled with them in 
Europe in 1865, spending some time with them in Russia. 

DWIGHT L. MOODY, the evangelist, died a Spiritualist. 
When this great American preacher was holding a series of 
meetings in San Diego, California, several years since, I was 
among his attentive listeners, and when nearly through with his 
engagement in the interests of converting human souls, I wrote 
him two letters, publishing them in the San Diego "Vidette." 
In these letters I conscientiously urged him to investigate Spirit- 
ualism and accompany me on a missionary tour around the 
world. My purpose was to secure him, Mr. Sankey to sing, and 
Mrs. Freitag, or Mrs. Foye, to give tests, on the voyage. He 
did not accept my invitation, and soon after sickened and died. 



56 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

I am now doing (wiitten in New Zealand) this evangelizing — 
this missionary work alone. He died a Spiritualist. The De- 
troit "Tribune," the Chicago "Press," and other journals, in 
treating of Mr. Moody's death, say, "He was natural, patient, 
and thoughtful to the last. He seemed to feel that his hard 
breathing might disturb his watching loved ones. . . And 
in the early morning near the closing scene, coming out of a 
sinking spell, he said: 

" T am going out of this old tenement — going up higher 
into a house that is immortal, — into a body that death cannot 
touch, that sin cannot taint, a body fashioned like unto His own 
glorious body.' . . The doctor, thinking him sinking again, 
stepped to his bedside to administer another hypodermic injec- 
tion. 

" Ts there anything gained by this?' asked Mr. Moody. 

" 'Nothing, except to give you strength and relieve your suf- 
fering.' 

" 'Then I think we will stop, for it is only prolonging the 
sufferings of those who are dear to me. . . Earth is receding. 
Heaven is approaching. God and his holy angels are calling 
me. . . If this is death, there is no valley. This is glorious. 
I have been within the gates, and I have seen the children, 
Dwight and Irene." These were his two grandchildren who had 
passed to spirit life. 

Now then, did this dying evangelist Moody, tell the truth? 
If so, he had already been "within the gates," — he had heard 
"the angels calling him," he had seen his spirit grandchildren, 
Irene and Dwight. And further if his dying testimony be true, 
then Spiritualism is true. Moody died a Spiritualist. 

MRS. MARY FLETCHER.— This devoted Methodist and 
"Mother in Israel," as she was often called, was gifted with 
revelations and marvelous spiritual manifestations. The 
authoress of Adam Bede, in writing of Rev. Mr. Fletcher and 
wife, and the old-time Methodists, says: "They believed in 
miracles, (spiritual manifestations) in instantaneous conversions, 
spiritual revelations, dreams, and visions. . . They sought 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 57 

for divine guidance by opening the Bible at hazard, and had a 
literal way of interpreting the Scriptures which is not at all sanc- 
tioned by scholastic commentaries. Mrs. Fletcher, in a state of 
ecstasy, had a visible manifestation of Jesus, and she was recog- 
nized as being devoutly religious and pious in her daily life." 

Her diary and letters abound with phrases and forms that 
were quite commonly used among the early Quakers, such as, 
"These things were laid on my mind," — "These thoughts were 
impressed upon my heart," — "It was opened before me in vis- 
ion," — "the thoughts which flowed into my mind," — "something 
seemed to whisper," — "I then found, as it were, a conversation 
carried on in my mind," — "the clear leadings of the spirit in- 
clined me to remark." She affirms, "Night and day I have a 
sense of safety, I feel as if the angels encamped 'round about 
me.' There seems such a communion opened between the fam- 
ily below and that above, as I cannot express." "I have com- 
munion with my heavenly friends above, and none below can 
harm or injure m^." Both the Rev. Mr. Fletcher and his wife, 
according to their biographers, communed not only with the 
'Lord of hosts,' but with the angels, and also in heavenly dreams 
and in night visions they had sweet and heavenly communica- 
tions v/ith the departed dead. Sometimes their communications 
were received in mystic symbols. In October, 1784, Mrs. 
Fletcher gives a most vivid description of an "apparition," — a 
spirit whom she recognized. . . 

M.JAMES JOSEPH JACQUES TISSOT, author and painter 
•of the life of Christ. — Spiritualists, however, will remember M. 
Tissot best for his exquisite picture entitled "Apparition Medi- 
animique," representing two spirit forms which showed them- 
selves through the mediumship of Mr. Eglinton, one of them 
that of Mr. Eglington's spirit friend "Ernest," and the other 
that of M. Tissot's departed fiancee. 

DR. OSGOOD MASON, in his fine volume entitled "Tele- 
pathy and the Subliminal Self," without going as deeply into 
phenomenal spiritism and its evidences as Dr. Gibier has gone, 



58 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

does not hesitate to exclaim, "Spiritualism has now been on trial 
for more than 50 years. At first it was ridiculed by nearly 
everybody, later it was received as true, for the most part un- 
critically, by a multitude of people numbering, probably, mil- 
lions. The work of the last 20 years has been an examination,, 
carefully conducted by fair-minded capable men, of the phe- 
nomena upon which Spiritualism is based, as well as a more crit- 
ical discussion of its theories and claim?.. ... A greater 
number of educated people, unprejudiced and anxious only to 
find the truth, are engaged upon the problems of Spiritualism 
now than ever before in its history." Then, after discussing the 
pros and cons of the "subjective mind" theory popularly asso- 
ciated with the name of Thomas Jay Hudson, author of "The 
Law of Psychic Phenomena" and "The Scientific Basis of a 
Future Life," Dr. Mason continues: "If these messages pur- 
porting to come from spirit existences really are only the pro- 
duct of the subconscious mind, then all the subconscious minds 
that have reported themselves have agreed to lie, for they almost 
uniformly declare that they are spirits formerly inhabiting hu- 
man bodies. Such a stupendous lie is hardly supposable." 

VICTORIEN SARDOU, writer, author, and great French 
dramatist, wrote thus to his friend, M. Jules Bois : 

"My Dear Confrere: — I was one of the earliest students of 
Spiritism. That was about fifty years ago. I have passed from 
incredulousness to surprise and from surprise to conviction. 

"It would take a volume to answer you. I therefore limit 
myself to giving you the conclusions I have reached after half 
a century of observations and experiments. 

"Material phenomena observed under rigorously scientific 
conditions, and vouched for by scientists of whose names I need 
not remind you, are certainly no longer contestable. 

MUST BE SEPARATE INTELLECT. 

"But as a rule they are also inexplicable at the present stage 
of our knowledge. 

"In a great number of cases it is impossible to deny the inter- 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 59 

mention of an intellect separate from the intellect of the specta- 
tors. Impossible also to deny that this intelligent force is 
neither the projection nor result of their own thoughts. From 
the production of certain phenomena we must admit the effec- 
tive presence of occult beings, the exact nature of whom it has 
'been so far impossible to define exactly. 

"But, then, how can one say so without being covered with 
•ridicule ? How would one dare to face the disgusting ignorance 
that prevails even among so-called educated people — dare to 
assert that these beings are not chimerical, and that our beauti- 
iul (?) humanity is not the work of creation? 

"And so, in order to escape the raillery of official science, 
*rhe skepticism of ignoramuses and witty people (who so often 
are fools !), we try to explain away cases by pseudo-scientific 
hypotheses which are very funny to people who know what I 
know, who have seen what I have seen, and have done what I 
liave done. 

"You ask me whether I believe in materialization. Of course 
1 do, because I have myself caused spirits to materialize at the 
first epoch when I was a medium. And I still await the scientific 
man who will successfully explain, as a psychical force of which 
I should have been at once the author, spectator, and victim, the 
iact that a bunch of roses which I still preserve was thrown upon 
my writing table by an invisible hand. 

"Finally, about the first drawings to which you allude, I 
obtained the first ones in 1857, under conditions identical with 
those of M. Desmouiin's more recent experiences. But I have 
long since learned to believe that these pretended pictures of 
planetary life had no real value as documents of information. 

"They are just about as good for that purpose as the famous 
Martian language which some playful ghost lately tried to palm 
off upon us. 

"There, my dear confere, you have a summary of the conclu- 
sions I have reached from my own experiences with the inhabi- 
tants of the world beyond. It does not amount to much, you 



6o WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

see. And yet i feel I have not lost the time I devoted to the 
study of hese things. Amicable salutations. 

V. SARDOU." 

REV. H. R. HAWEIS, M. A., London, in an address in St. 
James Hall, said : 

"T am putting in a plea for the harmony of Spiritualism with 
Scripture, in order that the clergy shall recognize how much 
they are indebted to Spiritualism. I don't say there are not 
great dangers in it; but they exist everywhere. They are not 
confined to Spiritualism. But I do say that the clergy, through 
Spiritualism, hav^e had their Bible rehabilitated. We have had a 
new philosophical basis for immortality after that shock of 
atoms we call death. We find Spiritualism is not opposed to the 
Atonement (the reconciling of men to God), not opposed to the 
doctrine of the dead, not opposed to the communion of saints. 
'Are not they all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister unto 
such as shall be heirs of salvation?' I say that Spiritualism has 
finally taken away from us the capricious, fanciful, irrational kind 
of God who is supposed to judge His creatures in a way that 
would be a disgrace to a common magistrate, without intelli- 
gence, pity, sympathy, or knowledge; such a God as has re- 
volted so many sensible religious people; and Spiritualism has 
done away with him. Spiritualism has pointed us to One who* 
judges righteously, One who does not change, who is the same 
yesterday, to-day, and for ever, loving man through all, bring- 
ing him back by slow degrees, back to the diviner life, to the 
realization of his diviner self ; One whose policy can never alter,, 
because He can never alter. Spiritualism has told us of this 
remedial world beyond. It points us to life, not death, for 
"T is life not death for which we pant ; 
Tis life of which our nerves are scant, 
More life and fuller that we want.' 

"Yes, it leads us to the centre and source of life ; it reveals to< 
us the bright galaxy of ministering spirits, the Jacob's ladder 
which reaches from earth to Heaven and upon which the angels 
of God are ascending and descending. Spiritualism has givera 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 61 

us back our Bible, given us back our Christ, given us back our 
immortality, and given us back our God." 

JOSEPH BARKER, lecturer, writer, materialist, atheist. — 
It is nearly fifty years since I heard this English orator in Wav- 
erly, N. Y. His lecture was ironical and unreasonably bitter 
against God and the Bible, Christ and immortality. In his au- 
tobiography, page 159, published in 1869, 1 find the following 
concerning his conversion to Spiritualism, and which by the way 
in a recent republication his nephew omitted because of its spir- 
itual phenomena — this I say to the nephew's shame : 

"Spiritualism had something to do with my conversion. I 
know the strong feeling prevailing among Christians against 
Spiritualism, but I should feel as if I had not quite done my 
duty, if I did not. to the best of my recollection, set down the 
part it had in the cure of my unbelief. My friends must therefore 
bear with me while I give them the following particulars : 

"As I travelled to and fro in America, fulfilling my lecturing 
engagements, I met with a nvtmber of persons who had been 
converted, by means of Spiritualism, from utter infidelity, to a 
belief in God and a future life. Several of those converts told 
me their experience, and pressed me to visit some medium 
myself, in hopes that I might witness something that would lead 
to my conversion. I was, at the time, so exceedingly sceptical, 
that the wonderful stories which they told me, only caused me 
to suspect them of ignorance, insanity, or dishonesty ; and the 
repetition of such stories, to which I was compelled to listen in 
almost every place I visited, had such an unhappy effect on my 
mind, that I was strongly tempted to say, 'All men are liars/ 
I had so completely forgotten, or explained away, my own 
previous experiences, and I was so far gone in unbelief, that I 
had no confidence whatever in anything that was told me about 
matters spiritual or supernatural, I might have the fullest confi- 
dence imaginable in the witnesses when they spoke on ordinary 
subjects, but I could not put the slightest faith in their testimony 
when they told me their stories about spiritual matters. And 
though fifty or a hundred persons, in fifty or a hundred different 



62 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

places, without concert with each other, and without any temp- 
tation of interest, told me similar stories, their words had not 
the least effect on my mind. The most credible testimony in the 
world was utterly powerless, so far as things spiritual were con- 
cerned. And when the parties whose patience I tried by my 
measureless incredulity, entreated me to visit some celebrated 
medium, that I might see and judge for myself, I paid not the 
least regard to their entreaties. I was wiser in my own conceit 
than ali the believers on earth. 

"At length, to please a particular friend of mine in Philadel- 
phia, I visited a medium, called Dr. Redman. It was said that 
the proofs which lie gave of che existence and powers of de- 
parted spirits were such as no one could resist. My friend and 
his family had visited this medium, and had seen things which to 
them seemed utterly unaccountable, except on the supposition 
that they were the work of disembodied spirits. 

"When I entered Dr. Redman's room, he gave me eight small 
pieces of paper, about an inch wide and two inches long, and told 
mc to take them aside, where no one could see me, and write on 
them the names of such of my departed friends as I might think 
tit, and then wrap them up like pellets, and bring then 
I took the papers, and wrote on seven of them the names of my 
father and mother, my eldest and my youngest brothers, a sister, 
a sister-in-law, and an aunt, one name on each, and one I 
left blank. I retired to a corner to do the writing, where there 
was neither glass nor window, and I was so careful not to give 
anyone a chance of knowing what I wrote, that I wrote with a 
short pencil, so that even the motion of the top of my pencil 
could not be seen. I was, besides, entirely alone in that part of 
the room, with my face to the dark wall. The bits of paper 
^which the medium had given me were soft, so that I had no 
difficulty in rolling them into round pellets, about the size of 
small peas. I rolled them up, and could no more have told which 
was blank and which was written on, nor which, among the 
seven I had written on, contained the name of any one of my 
friends, and which the names of the rest, than I can tell at this 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 63 

moment what is taking place in the remotest orbs of heaven. 
Having rolled up the papers as described, I laid them on a round 
table, about three feet broad. I laid on the table at the same 
time a letter, wrapped up, but not sealed, written to my father, 
but with no address outside, I also laid down a few loose leaves 
of notepaper. The medium sat on one side the table, and I sat 
on the other, and the pellets of paper and the letter lay between 
us. We had not sat over a minute, I think, when there came 
very lively raps on the table, and the medium seemed excited. 
He seized a pencil and wrote on the outside of my letter, wrong 
side up, and from right to left, so that what he wrote lay right 
for me to read these words : '] came in with you, but you 
neither saw me nor felt me. WILLIAM BARKER/ And 
immediately he seized me by the hand, and shook hands with me. 
This rather startled me. I felt very strange. For WIL- 
LIAM BARKER was the name of my youngest brother, who 
had died in Ohio some two or three years before. I had never 
named him, I believe, in Philadelphia, and I have no reason to 
suppose that any one in the city was aware that I had ever such 
a brother, much less that he was dead. I did not tell the medium 
that the name that he had written was the name of a brother of 
mine; but I asked, Ts the name of this person among those 
written in the paper pellets on the table?' 

"The answer was instantly given by three loud raps, 'Yes/ 
"I asked, 'Can he select the paper containing his name?' 
"The medium then took up first one of the paper pellets and 
then another, laying them down again, till he came to the fifth, 
which, he handed to me. I opened it out and it contained my 
brother's name. I was startled again, and felt very strange. I 
asked, 'Will the person whose name is on this paper answer me 
some questions?' 

"The answer was, 'Yes/ 

"I then took part of my note paper, and with my left hand on 
edge, and the top of my short pencil concealed, I wrote, 'Where 

d / intending to write, 'Where did you die ?' But as soon 

as I had written 'Where d ,' the medium reached over my 



64 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

hand and wrote, upside down, and backwards way, as before, — 

" 'Put down a number of places, and I will tell you.' 

"Thus answering my question before I had had time to ask it 
in writing. 

"I then wrote down a list of places, four in all, and pointed' to 
each separately with my pencil, expecting raps when I touched 
the right one ; but no raps came. 

"The medium then said, 'Write down a few more.' I then 
discovered that I had not, at first, written down the place where 
my brother died : so I wrote down two more places, the first of 
the two being the place where he died. The list then stood 
thus : 

SALEM, 

LEEDS, 

RAVENNA, 

AKRON, 

CUYAHOGA FALLS, 

NEW YORK. 

"The medium then took his pencil and moved it between the 
different names, till he came to CUYAHOGA FALLS, which 
he scratched out. That was the name of the place where he 
died. 

"I then wrote a number of other questions, in no case giving 
the medium any chance of knowing what I wrote by any ordin- 
ary means, and in every case he answered the questions in writ- 
ing as he had done before; and in every case but one the 
answers were such as to show, both that the answerer knew 
what questions I had asked, and was acquainted with the mat- 
ters to which they referred. 

"When I had asked some ten or a dozen questions, the 
medium said, 'There is a female spirit wishing to communicate 
with you.' 

' Ts her name among those on the table ?' I asked. 

"The answer in three raps, was, 'Yes.' 

'' 'Can she select the paper containing her name?' I asked. 

"The answer again was, 'Y'es.' 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 65 

"The medium then took up one of the paper pellets, and put 
it down ; then took up and put down a second; and then took up 
a third and handed it to me. 

"I was just preparing to undo it, to look for the name, when 
the medium reached over as before, and wrote on a leaf of my 
note paper: 

'• 'It is my name. ELIZABETH BARKER.' 

And the moment he had written it, he stretched out his hand, 
smiling, and shook hands with me again. Whether it really was 
so or not, I will not say, but his face was the old expression of 
my mother's face; and when he shook hands with me, he drew 
his hand away in the manner in which my mother had always 
drawn away her hand. The tears started into my eyes, and my 
flesh seemed to creep on my bones. I felt stranger than ever. 
I opened the paper, and it was my mother's name : ELIZA- 
BETH BARKER. I asked a number of questions as before, 
and received appropriate answers. 

"But I had seen enough. I felt no desire to multiply experi- 
3. So I came away — sober, sad, and thoughtful. 

"I had a particular friend in Philadelphia, an old unbeliever 
called Thomas Illman. He was born at Thetford, England, and 
educated for the ministry in the Established Church. He was 
remarkably well informed. I never met with a sceptic who had 
more or knew more on historical or religious subjects, or 
who was better acquainted with things in general, except Theo- 
Parker. He was the leader of the Philadelphia Freethink- 
ers, and was many years president of the Sunday Institute of 
rhat city. He told me, many months before I paid a visit to 
Dr. Redman, that he once paid him a visit, and that he had seen 
what was utterly beyond his comprehension, — what seemed 
quite at variance with the notion that there was no spiritual 
world, — and what compelled him to regard with charity and 
forbearance the views of Christians on that subject. At the 
time he told me of these things, I had become rather uncharit- 
able towards the Spiritualists, and very distrustful of their state- 
ments, and the consequence was, that my friend's account of 



66 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

what he had witnessed, and of the effect it had had on his mind, 
made but little impression on me. But when I saw these things 
resembling what my friend had seen, his statements came back 
to my mind with great power, and helped to increase my aston- 
ishment. But my friend was now dead, and I had no longer an 
opportunity of conversing with him about what we had seen. 

"The result of my visit to Dr. Redman was, that I never after- 
wards felt the same impatience with Spiritualists, or the same in- 
clination to pronounce them foolish or dishonest, that I had felt 
before. It was plain, that whether their theory of the spirit 
world was true or not, they were excusable in thinking it true. 
It looked 1 ike truth. I did not myself conclude that it was true, 
but I was satisfied that there was more in this wonderful uni- 
verse than could be accounted for on the coarse materialistic 
principles of Atheism. My scepticism was not destroyed, but it 
was shaken and confounded. And now, when I look back on 
these things, it seems strange that it was not entirely swept 
away. But believing and disbelieving are habits, and they are 
subject to the same laws as other habits. You may exercise 
yourself in doubting till you become the slave of doubt. And 
this was what I had done. I exercised myself in doubting, till 
my tendencies to doubt had become irresistible. My faith, both 
in God and man, seemed entirely gone. I had not, so far as 
I can see, so much as '"'a grain of mustard seed" left. So far 
as religious matters were concerned, I was insane. It makes 
me sad to think what a horrible extravagance of doubt had taken 
possession of my mind. A thousand thanks to God for my de- 
liverance from that dreadful thraldom." 

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX, author, poet, and press 
writer, says : "I believe hundreds of well authenticated in- 
stances exist where these spirit forms have been seen — not in 
darkened rooms, under linen sheets, but in broad light, and in 
their own likeness. 

"I believe thousands of instances have occurred where mes- 
sages have been received from them, and I have no doubt that 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 67 

we are often visited by departed friends, whose presence we 
vaguely feel, but whom wc cannot see or hear. 

"Since such visitations are our only absolute proof of a 
future life, I fail to understand why religious people cry out 
against a belief in spirit return. 

"The Bible is full of such occurrences, and God's unverse 
is the same to-day as it was in those historic times. 

"Meantime I feel that since the spirit life is the more ad- 
vanced life, we should not intrude upon its higher usefulness by 
continual attempts to bring our friends back to earth. Let them 
make the advances. 

"It is easily understood how one in great bereavement 
haunts the mediums and clairvoyants, hoping for a message 
from a dear one to break the awful silence of the grave. 

"That such messages have been received I have no doubt. 

"That I myself have received them I am confident, but such 
occurrences have been rare, while my investigations have been 
frequent. 

"There is no questioning the fact that some people are en- 
dowed with what might be termed a spiritual telephone, just as 
others have mechanical, musical, or mathematical genius. 

"But even as the earthly telephone at times is unreliable, 
and "Central" does not always make the right connections, so 
these spiritual wires are not always to be relied upon. 

"It is foolish, dangerous, and wrong to appeal to our friends 
who have passed into another world for advice and counsel upon 
every earthly subject. Nothing but harm can result from a con- 
stant effort to bring back disembodied spirits. They have their 
own work to do, and we are here to Avork out our destinies, to 
decide our own problems and to live our own lives. No one in 
this world or the next can do these things for us. 

"We are scholars in school, and we must not appeal to the 
graduates to come back from the busy world to give us the 
answers to all life's problems. 

"The moment those endowed with the power to communi- 



68 



WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 



cate with spirit realms use those powers as a means of earning 
money they become unreliable for obvious reasons. * * 

"I am confident we are all often surrounded by bands of in- 
visible forces, spirits in various phases of development who are 
interested in our welfare. 

"They are God's messengers, sent to cheer and help strug- 
gling humanity." 

N. P. TALMADGE, United States Senator and Governor 
of Wisconsin, during i859-'0o-i-2, was associated with Judge 
Edmonds in investigating Spiritualism. It is hardly necessary 
to say he became a devoted Spiritualist. 

HELEN WILMANS. Florida, published the following m 
"Freedom," February, 1900: _ 

"All my readers know that I am deeply interested in the 
subject of Spiritualism. Perhaps they do not know that -what- 
ever those peculiar noises called spirit raps really are — I have 
been regularly followed by them, almost persecuted by them, 
ever since I was a girl. I do most really believe that I was famil- 
iar with the raps before the Fox girls were. At all events I did 
not hear of the Fox girls for years after I began to hear the raps. 
"I soon discovered that there was something uncanny about 
them, and was afraid to be left alone at night. Being left alone 
they would begin. Then I would turn weak with fright As 
fear is the most negative of all conditions it naturally followed 
that the more frightened I became the more the raps increased. 
The demonstrations were not confined to raps; other noises 
were produced, often in the most seemingly reckless manner. 
For instance, a cabinet of curios and vases, that I valued highly 
would appaarently be shaken so that it sounded as if everything 
on it rattled down to the floor, where there was a tremendous 
crash as of broken dishes and things. Yet the cabinet was not 
shaken and not an article upon it was ever displaced. 

"It was onlv occasionally that these demonstrations would 
come when other people were present. I was not frightened 
when others were present, and consequently not negative 

"When in a state of fear and very negative, it seemed as it 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 69 

my body dissolved ; at times this went so far I would have to 
call the atoms of it together by an effort, and then I would run 
out of the room and never stop until I found company. 

'"As soon as the idea of spirits was attached to these demon- 
strations I accepted it ; indeed I had always believed it to be 
spirits," etc. 

T. SIDNEY COOPER, R. A., the great painter, heard 
spirit voices and saw picture-visions. 

DR. CHIAIA, of Naples, brought in 1892 the illiterate peas- 
ant woman, Paladino, gifted with mediumship to Milan to meet 
a scientific commission, for the investigation of the spirit phe- 
nomena. 'Several of these scientists were out-and-out material- 
ists, and bitterly prejudiced against Spiritualism. The commis- 
sion held seven teev sittings. Among the phenomena were the 
following: "The weight of the medium under varying magnetic 
conditions was found to range from a minimum of 100 pounds 
to a maximum of 154 pounds. Different articles put upon the 
table were agitated and lifted up into the air by invisible hands, 
and at the request of the committee one of the spirits present 
struck the head of each person in the seance-room." The re- 
port declared that all idea of the phenomena being produced by 
the medium, must be dismissed as an impossibility. This doc- 
ument was signed by Alexander Aksakof, Privy Councillor to 
the Emperor of Russia and editor of the "Psychische Studien ;" 
Prof. G. Schiapparelli, Director of the Observatory at Milan; 
Carl du Prel, doctor of philosophy at Munich; A. Brofferio, 
professor of philosophy in the Manzoni College at Milan; G. 
Geresa, professor of phvsics in the Government School of Sci- 
ence and Agriculture at Paris; Cesare Lombroso, professor of 
Legal medicine at the University, Portici ; Charles Richet, pro- 
fessor of medicine in the Sarbonne at Turin; F. D. Armicis, 
director of claims in the University of Naples ; O. G. B. Erma- 
cora and G. Finizi, both of them doctors of medicine and stu- 
dents in the psychic sciences. 

Here were ten men occupying the highest positions in 
Europe for scholarship, science, and philosophy, testifying to 



yo WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

the reality of the spirit manifestations, after the most careful 
and crucial investigations. They were trained scientists. 

PROFESSOR LOMBROSO, a pronounced materialist, was 
manly enough to publish an apology for having ridiculed psychic 
phenomena as fraud or delusion, adding: "The reality of the 
phenomena is now to me indisputable." 

RAOUL PICTET, professor in the Genoa University, deliv- 
ered a lecture May, 1893, in the hall of the University of Liege 
in Belgium, giving in his adhesion to Spiritualism, saying: "I 
am constrained to do so by the invincible logic of facts." 

DR. MIGUEL SANS BENITO, professor of metaphysics 
in the University of Barcelona, is a devoted Spiritualist. He 
affirms and publishes that : "Spiritualism is the synthesis of the 
most important principles and discoveries of science ; and that 
we may advantageously study it, with the firm assurance that 
it will open out new horizons to our intelligence; besides sup- 
plying our hearts with a beautiful consolation in those bitter 
moments of our lives, which are occasioned by a painful be- 
reavement." 

M. T. FALCOMER, professor in the Technical Institute and 
the Minister of Public Instruction at Alessandria, in Piedmont, 
is an enthusiastic Spiritualist, declaring that the spiritual phe- 
nomena afford "the only positive proofs of a future conscious 
existence." 

HERR MAX SEILING, professor of polytechnics in the 
University of Helsingfers, the oldest in Russia, doubted the con- 
tinuation of man's existence ; but through the mediumistic gifts 
of Madame d' Esperancc, a lady of both culture and fortune, he 
was forced by the most conclusive evidences to confess the 
grand truth of a present converse with spirits, once clothed in 
mortality. 

OCHAROWTCZ, the learned professor in the University of 
Warsaw, was induced in the latter part of 1894 to study the 
psychic phenomena under the most rigorous test conditions of 
mediums. Having previously studied, he was considered an 
authority in magnetism and hypnotism — and now he was 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 71 

bound to get at the bottom of what was denominated "Spirit- 
ualism." After being fully convinced of its truth he said: ; T 
found I had done a great wrong to men who had proclaimed 
new truths at the cost oi their positions. And now, when I re- 
member that I branded as a fool, that fearless investigator, 
Crookes, the inventor of the radiometer, because he had the 
courage to assert the reality of mediumistic phenomena, and to 
subject them to scientific tests; and when I also recollect that 
1 used to read his arrticles upon Spiritualism with the same stu- 
pid style, as his colleagues in the British Association bestowed 
upon them, regarding him as crazy, 1 am ashamed both of my- 
self and others, and I cry from the very bottom of my heart, 
'Father, I have sinned against the light!'" 

MARGHIERI, the erudite professor of the physical sciences 
in the University of Naples ; and Dr. Giulio Belfiore, author of 
that profound work upon ''Hypnotism and Its Therapeutic 
Effects," are both outspoken and active Spiritualists. And so, 
Professor Armand Sabatier, Dean of the Faculty of Sciences 
and Director of the Zoological Institute at Montpellier — one 
of the greatest minds in Europe, has been for some time study- 
ing psychic phenomena — and it is credibly reported that he 
has become convinced of the truth of Spiritualism. 

No intelligent, conscientious, and right-minded person can 
investigate the psychic phenomena without becoming a Spirit- 
ualist. Accumulated evidences force conviction. Faith blos- 
soms into knowledge. Spiritualism reaffirms and reiterates the 
pure doctrines of primitive Christianity. It sweeps aside the 
monstrous absurdities that have been grafted upon it, such as 
the blood-atonement dogma, infant damnation, and endless hell 
torments. These horrible doctrines have cursed the very name 
of Christianity, and given agnostics and atheists their ammuni- 
tion for perpetual warfare. The Christian nations of the earth, 
so it seems to me, are so deeply immersed in barbarous ignor- 
ance, in bigoted intolerance, in religious superstition and in spir- 
itual darkness, that nothing but the higher spiritual revelations 
which are being received all over the globe, from the discarnate 



72 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

dwellers in the Unseen, could have prevented the so-called civil- 
ized races of the earth from sinking into a condition of degra- 
dation and moral depravity resembling that which preceded the 
destruction of the great Roman Empire. Spiritualism in its 
higher and diviner aspects, and Spiritualism alone, will yet con- 
vict — conquer and redeem the world. 

PROFESSOR JOSEPH RHODES BUCHANAN, M. D., 
the learned discoverer of psychometry and sarcognomy, writer 
upon metaphysics, author of "System of Anthropology," "The 
New Education," "Manual of Psychometry," and a pronounced 
adept in true Theosophy — was for many years a most distin- 
guished, outspoken Spiritualist. 

HON. LUTHER MARSH, New York (once the law part- 
ner of Daniel Webster, the great Constitutional expounder of 
law T ), jurist, law compiler, writer, and author, was a firm and 
pronounced Spiritualist. 

RT. LION. WM. E. GLADSTONE, politician and far-see- 
ing statesman, cautiously says : "I shall not adopt language of 
determined disbelief in all manifestations, real or supposed, 
from the other world. They give me little satisfaction, but that 
does not warrant meeting them with a negative. * * I know 
of no rule which forbids a Christian to examine into the system 
called Spiritualism." 

JOHN G. WHITTIER, the good Quaker poet, in his ad- 
dress at William Lloyd Garrison's funeral, said : "Our beloved 
Garrison's faith in the continuity of life was very positive. He 
trusted more to the phenomena of Spiritualism than I can, how- 
ever. My faith is not helped by them, and yet I wish I could 
see real truth in them. I do believe, apart from all outward 
signs, in the future life, and that the happiness of that life, as of 
this, will consist of labor and self-sacrifice." 

He was deeply interested in the higher Spiritualistic phe- 
nomena. They seemed to him to be in harmony with the spirit 
that moved the Quakers in their ablest addresses. I learned 
from a most reliable source that a few days before his departure 
from earth, and virtually on his death-bed, he remarked to a 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 73 

personal friend that, he had seen and held a lengthy conversa- 
tion with the spirit daughter of the late Senator G. W. Morrill, 
a young lady whom he most highly esteemed, and who herself 
was quite a poet. How sweet the following lines : 
I touched the garment-hem of truth, 

Yet saw not all its splendor. 

+ * * * * 

And slowly learns the world the truth, 

That makes us ail thy debtor, 

1'h at holy life is more than writ, 

And spirit more than letter. 

***** 

For truth's worst foe is he who claims 

The act as Goers avenger, 
And deems, beyond his sentry beat, 
The crystal walls in danger. 

en on my day of life the night is falling, 
And, In the winds from unsunned spaces blown, 
I hear far voices out of darkness calling 
My feet to paths unknown. 
rain Whittier writes Chas. F. Bates : "I have heard Gar- 
rison talk much of his faith in Spiritualism. He had no doubt 
whatever, and he was very happy. Death was to him but the 
passing from one room to another and a higher one. * * I 
wonder whether if I could see a real spirit I -should believe my 
own senses. I do sometimes feel very near to dear ones who 
have left me. Of one thing I feel sure : Something outside of 
myself speaks to me, and holds me to duty, warns, reproves, 
and approves. It is good, for it requires me to be good; it is 
wise, for it knows the thoughts and interests of the heart. It 
is to me a revelation of God, and of his character and attributes ; 
the one important fact before which all others seem insignifi- 
cant." 

Longfellow, the Tennyson of America, attended spiritual 
seances when traveling afar in Italy and freely expressed 
his belief in an open communion between the visible and the un- 



74 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

seen world. And accordingly he wrote: "The spiritual world 
lies all about us, and its avenues are open to the unseen feet of 
phantoms, that come and go, and we perceive them not, save by 
their influence, or when at times a most mysterious providence 
permits them to manifest themselves to mortal eyes. . . . 
"Then the forms of the departed 

Enter at the open door 
The beloved ones, the true-hearted 
Come to visit us once more." 

HON. BENJAMIN F. WADE, of Ohio, ex-President of 
the Senate, and United States Senator; and ex-Senator How- 
ard, of Michigan, were avowed Spiritualists. It was largely 
through the influence of these two Senators and Hamilton Fish, 
Secretary of State, that I was sent into Asiatic Turkey as a 
United States Consul. 

PROFESSOR W. F. BARRETT, F. R. S. E., Professor of 
Experimental Physics and Dean of the Faculty of the Royal 
College of Sciences, Ireland, says . 

"The impiessive fact of the spirit phenomena is the intelli- 
gence behind them and the evidence of an unseen individuality 
as distinct as our own." 

Other further investigators and distinguished scientists add 
their testimony: 

PROFESSOR G. J. FECHNER, Professor of Physics and 
Natural Philosophy, Leipsic, author of "The Soul of Plants," 
"The Zendavesta,'"' "The Things of the Future," "Elements of 
of Psycho — Physics," "The Problem of the Soul," and "About 
the Life Hereafter." 

PROFESSOR EDWARD WEBER, Professor of Physics, 
Germany, and founder (with his brother) of the doctrine of the 
vibration of forces, author "Electro-Dynamic Measurement" (4 
Vols.). No scientific reputation stands higher in Germany than 
that of Weber. 

PROFESSOR J. C. F. ZOLLNER, Professor of Physical 
Astronomy at the University of Leipsic, Member of the Royal 
Saxon Society of Sciences, Foreign Member of the Royal As- 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 



/> 



Ironomical Society of London, of the Imperial Academy of Nat- 
ural Philosophy at Moscow, Honorary Member of the Psych- 
ical Association, Frankfort, of the Scientific Society of Psychol- 
ogical Studies at Paris, etc., of the British National Association 
of Spiritualists, London. He says : 

"We have acquired proof of the existence of an invisible 
world which can enter into relations with humanity." 

PROFESOR R. VON ESENBECH, President Royal 
Academy of Sciences, Germany. 

REV. JOHN PAGE HOPPS, author "Pessimism, Science,, 
and God," editor of "'The Coming Day," book reviewer, and 
pastor of a liberal London church. 

REICHENBACH, while the discoverer of od, odylic eman- 
ations that flowed from crystals, flowers, and human brains, was 
an invesigator of Spiritualism. To this end the "Spiritual Maga- 
zine," London (Vol. II., pp. 508-9-10-11) has this very interest- 
ing communication concerning the Baron : "Whilst here in 
London, Baron Reichenbach for the first time saw many of the 
phenomena of Spiritualism which he investigated with the great- 
est care." No 'nan with the investigating tendencies and schol- 
arly research of Reichenbach could witness these phenomena 
without becoming a convert to their genuineness. 

W. M. THACKERY.— "It is very well for you, who have 
probably never seen any Spiritual Manifestations to talk as you. 
do ; but if you had seen what I have witnessed, you would hold 
a different opinion." 

MR. (AND MRS.) S. C. HALL, F. S. A., Editor "Art 
Journal," writes : 

"The mockers and scoffers at Spiritualism are almost exclu- 
sively those who have seen nothing of it, know nothing about 
it, and will not inquire concerning it." 

This distinguished writer and reviewer further says: "Spir- 
itualism has made me a Christian. I humbly and fervently thank 
God it has removed all my doubts. I could quote abundant 
instances of conversions from unbelief to belief — of some to> 
perfect faith from total infidelity. I am permitted to give one 



76 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

name ; it is that of Dr. Ellitson, who expresses his deep gratitude 
to Almighty God for the blessed change that has been wrought 
in his heart and mind by Spiritualism. When this is the stand- 
point of the believer in the higher aspects of Spiritualism, it 
is obvious that we have to deal with no mere commonplace in- 
fatuation, which can be brushed aside with indifference or con- 
tempt, but rather with a movement which is firmly established 
in all enlightened lands." 

LORD RAYLEIGH, F. R. S., Professor of physics in Uni- 
versity of Cambridge. 

PROFESSOR SCHEIBNER, teacher of mathematics in 
the University of Leipsic. 

DR. FRANZ HOFFMAN, Professor of philosophy, Wurtz- 
burg University. 

PROFESSOR WAGNER, geologist and scientist, Univer- 
sity of Russia. 

EMILIO CASTELAR, the great Spanish orator and 
patriot. 

PROFESSOR WM. GREGORY., Edinburgh; Lord Dun- 
raven, Lord Adair, Flaxman and Blake, the latter two, writers, 
artists, and pamteis. 

HIRAM POWERS, with whom I had a most charming in- 
terview in his studio in Florence, was not only a famous sculp- 
tor, but a firm and outspoken Spiritualist. 

HON. GEORGE THOMPSON, the bosom friend of Wm. 
Lloyd Garrison, and who traveled and lectured with him exten- 
sively all over the United States in the anti-slavery movement, 
was an acknowledged Spiritualist. 

THE LION. N. P. TALMADGE, Ex-Governor of Wiscon- 
sin ; Senator Simmons, of Rhode Island ; Hon. J. L. Sullivan, 
formerly our Minister to Portugal, were all sincere Spiritualists. 
The latter wrote extensively upon Spiritualism. 

BAYARD TAYLOR, writer, author, and traveler, and Oli- 
ver Johnson, formerly editor of the "Christian Union," plainly, 
firmly expressed their views of a conscious intercommunion be- 
tween the world's visible and invisible. 



WHAT IS SlIRITUALISM? 77 

THE REV. JOHN PIERPONT, many years a Unitarian 
clergyman of Boston, writer, poet, author, was a devoted Spirit- 
ualist, and presided at the National Convention of Spiritualists 
once convening in Providence, R. I. 

EPES SARGENT, editor 'Boston Transcript," author "Sci- 
entific Basis of Spiritualism," "Proof Palpable of Immortality," 
"The Standard Speaker," "Planchette, the Despair of Science," 
and 22 Vols, on "Etymology," was an enthusiastic Spiritualist. 

In writing to an English review, Mr. Sargent said : 

"A pure and simple Theism — what I believe to have been 
the religion of Chi ist himself — freed from all ecclesiastical 
limitations and theological subtleties, is for me the culmination 
of Spiritualism. God and Immortality' sums it all up. At the 
same time I see no reason why a man should not be a very 
thorough Spiritualist, and at the same time hold to some liberal 
form of Christianity. Your Tmperator' speaks my own long- 
held views. . . Without the religious element Spiritualism 
will degenerate into mere curiosity-hunting." He further 
wrote : 

"We must believe in an absolute, immutable principle of 
Goodness, and in a Divine Intelligence, from which all axiom- 
atic, a priori truth must flow down to finite intelligences, if we 
would unite religion with morality , for if we are at the mercy 
of some blind chance, under which what is right to-day may 
be wrong tomorrow, the Cosmos is not likely to be a pleas- 
ant abiding-place, for an eternity to truth-loving, justice-loving 
souls. An enlightened Spiritualism conducts the mind, sooner 
or later, to an enlightened Theism — liberal as the sun and all- 
embracing as the universe. But it is not dogmatic, since its 
inferences are those of the scientific mind itself." "Scientific 
Basis," page 168). 

"The Supreme Being must be also conscious, since there 
can be no knowledge without a consciousness of it, active in 
some state or other. Using the word person in its large and 
ultra etymological sense. He must be also personal, since con- 
sciousness involves personality. This does not depend on indi- 



78 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

vidualization through organism, nor on the relativity of a per- 
son, — on the distinction of a me from a not me. An eminent 
philosophical physicist, Hermann Lotze. remarks: 

'Personality has its basis in pure selfhood — in self-con- 
sciousness — without reference to that which is not self. The 
personality of God, therefore, does not necessarily involve the 
distinction of God by himself from what is not himself, and so 
his limitation or iiifiiiiteness ; on the contrary, perfect person- 
ality is to be found only in God, while in all finite spirits there 
exists only a weak imitation of personality. The finiteness of 
the finite is not a productive condition of personality, but rather 
a bar to its perfect development.' " 

JAMES G. CLARK, the "American Laureate," as B. O. 
Flower of the '"Arena" termed him, was a writer, author, and an 
illustrious poet, whom to know was to esteem and love. He 
was at first a lyric writer, and later a song writer, whose poems 
were aflame with freedom, justice, and all the reforms of the 
age. He never shrank from expressing his convictions of the 
truth of Spiritual! am, and his services were in great demand at 
Spiritualist campmeetings. He had great admiration for the 
Nazarene, and was beautifully set forth in the following stanzas : 

Sweet prophet of Nazareth, constant and tender, 

Whose truth like a rainbow encircles the world; 
The time is approaching when wrong shall surrender, 

And war's crimson banners be furled ; 
When the throat of the lion no longer shall utter 

Its roar of defiance in desert and glen, 
When the lands will join hands, and the black cannon mutter 

Their discords no more to the children of men. 

As breaks the gold sunlight, when heroes and sages 
Were rising and falling like meteors in space, 

A new glory broke on the gloom of the ages, 

And love warmed to life in the glow of thy face ; 

The wars of the Old Time are waning and failing, 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 79 

The peace of the New Time o'erarches our tears; 
The orbs of the Old Time are fading and paling, 
The sun of the New Time is gilding the years. 

The mist of the ocean, the spray of the fountain, 

The -vine on the hillside, the moss on the shrine, 
The rose in the valley, the pine on the mountain, 

All turn to a glory that symboleth thine ; 
So I yearn for thy love as the purest and dearest 

That ever uplifted a spirit from woe, 
And I turn to thy life as the truest and nearest 

To Infinite Goodness that mortals may know. 

Soul of the Orient, peerless and holy, 
Enthroned in a splendor of angels above, 

1 would join with the singers that raise up the lowly, 
And praise Thee in deeds that are Christlike in love. 

Let my words be as showers that fall on the highlands, 

Begotten in shadows, expiring in light, 
While Thine are the billows that sing to life's islands 

In numbers unbroken, by noonday and night. 

DR. KANE, the Arctic explorer ; the Countess of Caithness ; 
Lady Cowper; Baron and Baroness Von Vay; H. I. H. Nich- 
olas, Duke of Leuchtenberg; His Serene Highness, Prince 
George of Solms, whom I had the great pleasure of meeting in 
Rome, and conversing with upon the phenomena and philoso- 
phy of Spiritualism, and whom I last met by a beautiful fountain 
on Pincian Hill in the Eternal City, was with the above-named 
illustrious persons, thorough Spiritualists. 

WM. S. ROBINSON, the "Warrington" of the highest 
phase of journalism, as he neared his end, frequently spoke of 
his "'Visions" of the future life. Richly enjoying them he said: 
"Why, this world and the next are joined as closely as my two 
hands," he would say, clasping them together. "There they 
are, no break between, no gulf to pass. I feel every day like 



80 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

one who walks by a hedge, and is looking for a gate, a gap to 
pass through, to walk on the other side. I don't know half of the 
time whether I am in the body or not.'' These visions, like 
those of Peter, Paul, and Patmos John, did not trouble him, for 
he said, he "was not afraid of ghosts." Like Coleridge, "he had 
seen too many of them.'' 

SOCRATES was constantly attended with a "divine voice" 
to admonish, guard, and guide him in the events of his daily life ; 
while it urged to good deeds he declared that it "restrained 
from evil." It sustained him to bear unrepiningly the revilings 
of the ill-tempered Xantippe, and with an unfaltering trust, to 
drain the fatal cup. 

When asked by his disciple Crito, "Where shall we bury 
you?" he replied, in substance, "Bury me just where you please, 
if you can only catch me,'' and then he further added, "Have 
I not told you and the wise men that the body is not Socrates ?" 

In the palmy and prosperous days of Greece, Spiritualism 
was the only religion that inspired to the higher life. Hence, 
Hume says : "We learn from a hundred masterpieces of the 
intellect how untiring was that spirit of restless inquiry with 
which every people of Hellas searched into the secrets of the 
unseen. No city was founded ; no army marched forth to battle ; 
no vessels laden with emigrants set sail for Italy or Asia Minor 
without consulting the oracles of the gods." 

HON. JOHN P. BROWN, linguist and author, connected 
with the Turkish Legation in Constantinople for twenty years, 
believed firmly in spiritual manifestations. 

REVS. MINOT J. SAVAGE, WM. BRUNTON, SOLON 
LAUER, and other prominent Unitarian preachers, are fully 
convinced of the truths and moral grandeur of Spiritualism. 
Some of them advocate it openly. 

Such eminent statesmen and U. S. Senators as the late 
Miller, of Alabama, and Sprague, of Rhode Island, were Spirit- 
ualists. 

W. EMMETTE COLEMAN, the eminent writer, author, 
and scholarly Orientalist of San Francisco, California; Dr. B. O. 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 81 

Flower of the "Arena," essayist and moral scientist; Barrett 
Brenning, the poet, now of Italy, are Spiritualists. 

PROFESSOR ALEXANDER WILDER, M. D., writer, 
author, and metaphysician, known for his erudition in Europe 
quite as well as in Ameiica, is a confirmed believer in present 
inspirations and spirit ministries. 

Spiritualism converted Professor Hare, Robert Dale Owen, 
Professor Kiddle, and multitudes of other atheists, or rank 
materialists, to faith in God and immortality. The once doubt- 
ing, yet distinguished S. C. Hall, of London, rejoicingly used 
these words : "Spiritualism has made me a Christian." 

J. ENMORE JONES, a staunch English Spiritualist, in his 
work entitled "Orthodox Spiritualism," makes this statement: 
"It may be well, as an historical fact, to state that more than 
one-half of the Spiritualists of England are Christians connected 
with one or other of the churches." 

PROFESSOR OLIVER J. LODGE, F. R. S., Dr. Sc, LL. 
B., Prof. Physics, Birmingham University, author of "Mod- 
ern Views of Eelecti icily, " writes : 

"I went in a state of scepticism as to the reality of Psychical 
Phenomena produced without apparent contact, but this scepti- 
cism has been overborne by facts." 

PROFESSOR HERBERT MAYO, F. R. S., M. D., Profes- 
sor of Anatomy and Physiology, King's College, London, said : 

"Twenty-live years ago, I was a hard-hearted unbeliever. 
Spiritual phenomena, however, suddenly and quite unexpectedly 
were soon after developed in my own family. This led me to in- 
quire and to try numerous experiments in such a way as to pre- 
clude the possibility of trickery and self-deception. That the 
phenomena occur there is overwhelming evidence, and it is too 
late now to deny their existence." 

DR. JOHN ELLIOTSON, F. R. S., M. D., Professor of 
Medicine in London University, President of the Royal Medical 
and Chirurgical Society of London, author of the "Lumley 
Lectures on Diseases of the Heart," editor of "The Zoist," etc. 



82 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

DR. LOCKHART ROBERTSON, F. R. S., sometime edi- 
tor "British Journal of Mental Science." (See below). 

"This writer (Dr. L. Robertson) can now no more doubt the 
physical manifestations of so-called Spiritualism than he would 
any other fact, as, for example, the fall of an apple to the ground,. 
of which his senses informed him." 

EARL OF CRAWFORD AND BALCARRES, F. R. S., 
Past President of the Royal Astronomical Society, etc. 

PROFESSOR WILLIAM DENTON, the eminent lecturer 
on Geology, author of "Our Planet, its Past and Future," "Soul 
of Things," etc., wrote : 

"I am a Spiritualist — and Spiritualism is a belief in the com- 
munication of intelligence from the spirits of the departed, com- 
monly obtained through a person of susceptibility, called a 
'medium.' " 

PROFESSOR ELLIOTT COUES, M. A., M. D., Ph. D., 
Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, Norwich Uni- 
versity, etc.. Professor of Biology in the American Agricultural 
College, Member of the National Academy of Science, author 
of "Field Ornithology," "Air Fauna Columbeana," etc., says : 

"Will you have the opinion of such a person as I have de- 
scribed, who for about ten years has studied, watched, and fol- 
lowed the phenomena of so-called Spiritualism, and who speaks 
from personal experiences with almost every one of them?' 
Then let me tell you that I know that the alleged phenomena 
of Spiritualism are true, substantially, as alleged." 

PROFESSOR ALEXANDER, Rio de Janeiro; Professor 
Cassal, LL. D. ; Professor H. Corson ; Professor Edland, 
Sweden — all pronounced Spiritualists. 

PROFESSOR TOMASO ERMACIO, Wurtzburg; Profes- 
sor Ockhorowicz, Warsaw; Professor Perty, Berne; Professor 
Schiebner, Leipsic; Professor Armand Sabbatier, Dean of the 
Faculty of Sciences, France; Professor M. Seling, Polytecnic, 
Helsingfors. 

PROFESSOR TORNEBOM, Sweden. 

"Only those deny the phenomena of Spiritualism who have 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 83 

never examined them, but profound study alone can explain 
them." 

PROFESSOR BROFERIO, Milan; Professor Margheiri, 
Naples ; Professor James H. Hyslop ; Psychology, Ethics, and 
Logic, in Columbia University, N. Y. 

"I shall not remain by the spiritistic theory if a better one 
can be obtained to explain the phenomena. I advance it simply 
as a hypothesis that will explain the facts. . . There is no 
other explanation, as I see, but Spiritualism." 

Jesus, the Galileean prophet, standing upon the pyramidal 
apex of Jewish Spiritualism, conversed with the spirits of Moses 
and Elias who long ago had passed away from their earthly 
bodies. In Deuteronomy, we are told that Moses died and was 
buried in a valley of the land of Moab ; and when Peter, James, 
John, and Jesus held their spiritual seance on the Mount (Luke 
IX., 28-30) Moses came — came, appeared in glory and 
"talked." This was plain, positive, straightforward Spiritualism. 
MRS. CATHERINE CROWE, author of "Night Side of 
Nature." 

MRS. DE MORGAN, author "From Matter to Spirit." 
L. CAHAGNET, author of "The Celestial Telegraph." 
PROFESSOR MAPES, U. S. A.; Professor Falcomer, 
Alexandria. 

DR. RICHARD HODGSON, M. A., LL. D., a prominent 
Member of the British Society for Psychical Research, and Sec- 
retary of the American one. 

"I believe I am in possession of incontrovertible facts which 
demonstrate immortality. I have witnessed some genuine 
supernormal phenomena, not explainable by either fraud, illus- 
ion or suggestion, and whose significance will have to be reck- 
oned with by all men of science." 

DR. ASHBURNER (one of the Queen's Physicians), 
author of "Animal Magnetism and Spiritualism." 

"I have myself 20 often witnessed spiritual manifestations 
that I could not, if I were inclined, put aside the evidences that 
have come before rne." 



84 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

DR. GARTH WILKINSON, M. D., M. R. C. S. E., F. R. 
G. S., author of "Human Science," '"The Greater Origins and 
Issues of Life and Death," "Lite of Swedenborg," etc. 

REV. H. W. THOMAS, D. D., Pastor of the People's 
Church, Chicago, and President of the Liberal Congress of Re- 
ligions, has, as referred to upon various occasions in public and 
private, frankly expressed his views in regard to the truths and 
moral teachings of Spiritualism. In introducing a volume to 
the public and endorsing it, he says : 

"It is reasonable to suppose, and certainly not unscriptural 
to say, that those in spirit-life minister to those yet in the body. 
There should, in thought and feeling, be no great separation, 
no impenetrable wail to those who have passed through death 
to the life beyond. 

"The venerable and learned Dr. Nash, of the Methodist 
Church, told me, twenty-five years ago, that the time was not 
distant when it would be no more strange for people to say 
ihey had met persons from the other world than that they had 
seen some one return from a journey to Europe or Asia." 

DR. PAUL GIBIER, Director of the Pasteur Institute, 
New York, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, author "Spirit- 
ualism or Fakirism," "Psychism, Analysis of Things Existing," 
etc. 

"Dr. Paul Gibier, whose recent loss to Science and Spiritual- 
ism is deeply to be regretted, contends, in his interesting 'Ana- 
lysis of Things,' which has for its sub-title, 'An Essay upon the 
Science of the Future; that the proof of man's possessing a con- 
sciousness which survives the change called death, has been 
already established by the phenomena of Spiritualism." 

DR. E. D. BABBITT, M. D., LL. D., author "Principles 
of Light and Color," "Human Culture and Cure," "Religion, 
as Revealed by the Material and Spiritual Universe," etc., Dean 
of the Eclectic College of Fine Forces, California. 

DR. GEORGE SEXTON, M. A., LL. D., D. D,. F. A. S., 
author of "Scientific Spiritualism," etc. 

DR. J. M. GULLY, M. D., Royal College of Sugeons, Lon- 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 85 

don, and Royal Psychical Society, Endinburgh, author of 
"Neuropatny and Nervousness." 

"After two years' investigation of the fact and numerous 
seances, I have not the smallest doubt and have the strongest 
conviction that such materialization takes place, and not the 
slightest attempt at trick or deception is fairly attributable to 
any one who assisted at Miss Cook's seances." 

DR. WILLIAM HITCHMAN, M. D., LL. D., M. R. C. 
S. E., F. L. S., F. R. S., Edinburgh, Consulting Surgeon Can- 
cer Hospital, Leeds, author of "Lectures on Intellectual Philos- 
ophy," etc. 

"Phenomena like these, present a question not to be settled 
by leading articles, but by positive experimental testimony ; in 
this case such testimony has been given in abundance." 

DR. J. M. PEEBLES, M. D., M. A., the celebrated traveler, 
physician, magazine writer, author, and speaker, formerly U. S. 
Consul at Trebizonde, Asiatic Turkey, author of "Seers of the 
Ages," "Immortality, and our Homes and Employments Here- 
after," "'Three Journeys Around the World," "The Christ Ques- 
tion Settled," 'Death Defeated," "Vaccination a Curse," "Spir- 
itualism vs. Materialism," etc., etc. (Written by James Smith, 
Melbourne, Australia, in pamphlet, entitled, "Overwhelming 
Testimony to Spiritualism."). 

DR. JAMES ESDAILE, M. D., Medical Officer of the Hon. 
East India Co., Superintendent of the Hoogly Hospital, Cal- 
cutta, author of "Letters from the Red Sea," "Mesmerism in 
India," etc. 

DR. JUSTINIUS KERNER, author, poet, Antiquarian, and 
Psychologist. 

DR. EUGENE CROWELL, M. D., author "Identity of 
Primitive Christianity and Modern Spiritualism." 

DR. J. B. MOTHERWELL, M. D., member of Council 
Melbourne University. 

DP. GODFREY HO WITT, M. D., brother of William 
Howitt, London. 



So WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

DR. CARTER BLAKE, D. So., Lecturer on "Comparative 
Anatomy" at Westminster Hospital. 

DR. GUILO BELFIORE, Dr. Stanhope Templeman 
Speer; Dr. Aceveto; Dr. G. Gerosa, Professor of Physics; Dr. 
Capuano; Dr. W. Lindsay Richardson; Dr. Stodart; Dr. Augus- 
tus Mueller ; Dr. C. W. Rohner. 

DRS. BERIGNY AND HICKSON, Homeopaths; Dr. F. 
L. H. Willis, Rochester, N. Y., writer, physician, author, and 
lecturer upon Spiritualism. 

JOSEFH JEFFERSON, Actor. 

DR. HAL-LOCK, M. D., New York. 

''Spiritualism is no new problem that ought to have taken 
the disciples of Science by surprise." 

DR. T. L. NICHOLLS, M. D„ F. A. S., author of "Esoteric 
Anthropology," etc. 

"I have in my possession direct writings and drawings done 
under absolute test conditions by departed spirits, with whose 
handwriting I am familiar as with my own." 

ALEXANDER AKSAKOF, Privy Councillor to Emperor 
of Russia, editor of "Psychic Studien." 

GRAND DUKE CONSTANTINE, of Russia. 

"I can as a witness testify that the writing was produced 
upon a slate which the Grand Duke alone held under and close 
to the table, while Siade's hands were on the table and did not 
touch the siate. Slade has since had the honor of being invited 
to two seances by the Grand Duke. Aksakof." 

LORD BROUGHAM, Statesman. 

"Even in the most cloudless skies of scepticism I see a rain- 
cloud if it be no bigger than a man's hand, it is Modern Spirit- 
ualism." 
■ BARON CARL DU PREL, Munich. 

"One thing is clear: that psychography must be ascribed to 
a transcendental origin. We shall find : That the hypothesis of 
prepared slates is inadmissible. The place on which the writing 
i» found is quite inaccessible to the hands of the medium. This 
intelligence can read, write, and understand the language of 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 87 

human beings, frequently such as is unknown to the medium. 
These beings are therefore, although invisible, of human nature, 
or species. It is no use whatever to fight against this proposi- 
tion." 

MAJOR GENERAL DRAYSON, Scientist and Astrono- 
mer, etc. 

BARON HELLENBACH, Scientist, author of "Birth and 
Death, as a change of form and perception." * * "The phe- 
nomena prove a life beyond." 

BARON GULDENSTUBBE, a Swedish nobleman, com- 
menced to procure direct spirit writing in 1841, and between 
that time and 1857 received about two thousand messages in 
different characters and languages, containing many proofs of 
spirit identity. His method usually was very simple, yet equally 
convincing, he would enter some religious edifice when none 
were present save a friend, or perhaps two, who were introduced 
as witnesses, place a piece of blank paper on a monument or 
statue of some celebrity, retire a short distance and wait in 
prayerful mood, earnestly desiring a response from the spirit 
lepresented by the monument. Returning after awhile he 
would frequently find a message on the paper, sometimes in lan- 
guages he was unfamiliar with. The testimony to this is of the 
highest character. 

LAURENCE OLIPHANT, Author; Mrs. Oliphant, author 
of "Little Pilgrim in the Unseen," '"Old Lady Mary," etc. 

NASSAU WILLIAM SENIOR, late Master in Chancery 
and twice Professor of Political Economy in the University of 
Oxford, etc. 

HUDSON TUTTLE, author "Arcana of Nature," "Arcana 
of Spiritualism," "Religion of Man," "Studies in Psychic Sci- 
ence," etc. 

"Spiritualism is the knowledge of everything pertaining to 
the spiritual nature of man; and, as spirit is the moving force 
of the universe in its widest scope, it grasps the domain of 
Nature. It embraces all that is known, and all that ever can 



8S WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

be known. It is Cosomopolitan Eclecticism, receiving all that 
is good, and rejecting aJl that is bad." 

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 

"One of the deepest and most imperative cravings of the 
Human heart, as it follows its beloved ones beyond the veil, is 
for some assurance that they still love and care for us. . . . 
They have overcome, have risen, are crowned, glorified ; but still 
they remain to us, our assistants, our comforters, and in every 
hour of darkness their voice speaks to us." 

"Sweet souls around us, watch us still, 

Press nearer to our side ; 
Into our thoughts, into our prayers, 

With gentle helping glide." 

In the "Church Union" she wrote these telling words : 

"We hold to the belief in the unbroken unity possible be- 
tween those who have passed to the higher life and this. We 
hold to that vivid faith in things unseen which was the strength 
of primitive Christians. The first Christians believed what they 
said they did — we do not. The unseen spiritual world, its 
angels and archangels, its saints and martyrs, its purity and 
its joys, were ever before them, and that is why they were such 
a mighty force in the world. St. Augustine says that it was the 
vision of the saints gone before that inspired them with courage 
and contempt of death — and it is true." 

MRS. STOWE further tells us that she did not really write 
"Uncle Tom's Cabin." it was given to her — it passed in vision 
before her. She had to tell it as it came, and suffered in so 
doing." 

HON. ROBEN NOEL, author of "A Philosophy of Im- 
mortality." 

ST. GEORGE W. STOCK, M. A., (Oxon). 

GEO. WYLD, LL. D., a noted London physician and 
author. 

"With regard to spirit writing there is no order of spiritual 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 89 

phenomena which impressed me more powerfully. . . The 
evidence that the writing was produced by a spiritual intelli- 
gence without the intervention of human hands, was over- 
whelming." 

SIR EDWIN ARNOLD, poet, author "The Light of 
Asia." 

"All I can say, is this : that I regard many of the 'manifesta- 
tions' as genuine and undeniable, and inexplicable by any known 
law, or collusion, arrangement, or deception of the senses ; and 
that I conceive Jt to De the duty and interest of men of science 
and sense to examine and prosecute the enquiry as one that has 
fairly passed from the region of ridicule." 

EUGENE NUS. 

"Eugene Nus, poet, philosopher, dramatic author and jour- 
nalist, declared in his "Things of the Other World," that he 
had found Spiritualism everywhere, and that it is sowing the 
seeds of a systematic morality, which is greatly preferable to 
the dreary negations which Materialism offers us." 

EMPEROR NICHOLAS I.; Emperor Napoleon III.; 
Countess EollenhofT. 

SIR CHARLES ISHAM, Bart, Member Spiritualist Alli- 
ance. 

LORD BULWER LYTTON, illustrious writer. 

EARL OF RADNOR, Member Spiritual Alliance. 

THE MASTER OF LYNDSAY, Lord Lyndhurst. 

NICHOLAS, Duke of Leuchtenberg ; Sir W. Trevelyan. 

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

"For theories, we get over no difficulty, it seems to me, by 
escaping from the obvious inference of an external spiritual 
agency. When the phenomena are attributed, for instance, to 
a second personality projected unconsciously and attended, to 
an unconscious exercise of volition and clairvoyance ; I see noth- 
ing clearly but a convulsive struggle on the part of the theorist 
to get out of a position he does not like, at whatever expense 
of kicks against the analogies of God's universe." 

MRS. E. B. BROWNING'S poetical inspirations are rich 



90 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

in the beautiful teachings of Spiritualism. Several years ago, 
when wandering through the walks of the Florence cemetery, 
not far from the flowing Arno, I saw a large, beautiful, and yet 
plain monument with these simple letters inscribed thereon, "E. 
JB. B." Anyone would know that they were the initials of Eliza- 
beth Barrett Browning, whose writings reveal her Spiritualism. 
My eye just now rests upon this poem entitled, "A Child 
Asleep :" 

As the moths around a candle, 

As the bees around the rose, 

As the gnat around a vapor, 

So the spirits group and close 

Round about a holy childhood, as if drinking its repose. 

In one of Mr. Home's seances mentioned by Mrs. Home in 
his biography, "the spirits put a wreath upon Mrs. Browning's 
head, and not on Mr. Browning's, which seemed," says D. D. 
Home, "to offend him." In her notes on "England and Italy," 
Mrs. Hawthorne, wife of the noted Nathaniel Hawthorne, 
wrote: "Mrs. Browning introduced that evening the subject 
of Spiritualism, and there was an animated talk. Mr. Brown- 
ing cannot believe, and Mrs. Browning cannot help believing." 

L. FIGUIF.R, editor "L'Annee Scientific et Industrielle." 

"Louis Figuier, who has done so much to popularize science, 
and in whose book entitled, 'The Day After Death,' there is such 
a fund of spiritual knowledge, wrote as follows : "I hold it for 
a certainty that there exist intermediate beings between God 
and man. I am absolutely ignorant as to how they can com- 
municate with the earth, but the fact of such communication 
appears to me to be positive.' " 

OLE BULL, the celebrated Norwegian Violinist. 

SERGEANT COX, President of Society of Psychical Re- 
search. 

FRANCES COPPEE, Poet, Dramatist, and Member of the 
French Acadernv. 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 91 

LEON FAVRE, Consul General, France, a writing medium; 
Fogozzi, Poet; '£. Anthony Trollope. 

M. THEIRS, Ex-President of France. 

"I am a Spiritualist, and an empassioned one, and I am anx- 
ious, I repeat, to confound materialism in the name of science 
and common sense." 

B. F. UNDERWOOD, many years editor of "Boston In- 
dex," scholar and author. 

ALEXANDER DUMAS, pere. 

"Dumas believed in apparitions, spirits, and unseen influ- 
ences . . . He always believed that his father's spirit came 
just after it had quitted the body to say farewell to him. He 
felt warm breath on his face and heard a voice say : "Alexander, 
I have come to bid you adieu, be a good boy and love your 
mother." Memoir by Mrs. Emily Crawford. 

ROBERT DALE OWEN, American Minister to Italy, 
author of "Footsteps on the Boundary of another World," "De- 
batable Land," etc. 

FLORENCE MARRYAT, author "The Spirit World," 
"There is no Death." 

I. H. FICHTE, the German Philosopher and Author. 
"I feel it my duty to bear testimony to the great fact of 
Spiritualism. No one should keep silent." 

CANON W1LBERFORCE, M. A. 

"It is a strengthening, calming consideration that we are 
in the midst of an invisible world of energetic and glorious life, 
a work! of spiritual beings than Avhom we have been made for 
a little while lower. Blessed be God for the knowledge of a 
world like this. It is evidently that region or condition of space 
in which the departed find themselves immediately after death; 
probably it is nearer than we imagine, for St. Paul speaks of 
our being surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. There, it seems 
to me, they are waiting for us." 

This Canon thus further referred to "well-attested manifes- 
tations," and to the "materialization of spirits," as published in 
the proceedings of the "Church Congress," and also described 



92 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

ir> a pamphlet by Rev. T. Colley, late archdeacon of Natal (a 
talented English clergyman, by the way, whom I have met, and 
known to be an avowed Spiritualist). The Canon also refers 
to Professor Barrett of the Royal College of Science, Dublin. 
The Professor wrote thus : 

"I know and rejoice in the blessing Spiritualism has been 
to my own faith, and to that of several dear friends of mine. 
Moreover, I cordially recognize the fact that in bereavement and 
deep distress numbers have been cheered, and consoled by the 
hope that Spiritualism has set before them." Professor Barrett 
brought the subject of Spiritualism before the British Associa- 
tion for the Advancement of Science, and an audience of 1,500 
listened to him. 

''Those who are following Spiritualism as a means and not 
an end, contend warmly that it does not seek to undermine re- 
ligion or to render obsolete the teachings of Christ ; that, on the 
other hand, it furnishes illustrations and rational proof of them 
such as can be granted from no other source ; that its manifesta- 
tions will supply deists and atheists with positive demonstration 
of a life after death, and that they have been instrumental in 
converting many secularists and materialists from scepticism to 
Christianity." 

REV. B. F. AUSTIN, M. A., LL. D., Canada. 

"After some years of investigation, under a great variety of 
circumstances, I dare affirm that the ethical system taught in 
these spirit communications have never been surpassed in the 
lofty character of the duties it proclaims, or the power and 
variety of the motives it urges to secure obedience to law. 

"The spiritual beauty, inherent divinity of many of these 
spirit messages, renders the thought of their diabolical origin a 
moral impossibility and the expression of that thought a blas- 
phemy." * * * "i have seen again and again these phe- 
nomena produced, heard these voices from the angel world, 
caught their living words of instruction and inspiration fresh 
from angelic lips, seen their forms materializing and dematerial- 
izing like a cloud vanishing from sight; held them by the hands, 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 93 

and have felt their hand in benediction on my head, and have 
learned to know and trust and love those inhabitants of the 
spirit world, even as I know and trust and love friends in the 
flesh." 

REV. HEBER NEWTON, Author and Rector of "All 
Souls Chuich,'' New "York. 

REV. J. O. BARRETT, lecturer, author, and Government 
employee. 

REV. MINOT J. SAVAGE, D. D., author of "Psychics, 
Facts, and Theories," "Life Beyond Death," and pastor of Uni- 
tarian Church, New York, says : 

"The result of my investigation leads me to believe that the 
spirits of the dead communicate with us. T have received com- 
munications from people whom I know to have lived on earth. 
It anybody can ofler some other hypothesis than spiritual com- 
munication I shall be glad to investigate it ; but I have never 
heard of one. It is a great question to the Christian church to- 
day." 

CHARLES FAUVETY, also a distinguished French Phi- 
losopher, and author of "The New Revelation," declared Mod- 
ern Spiritualism to be the force which will regenerate society. 

REV. W. E. CHANNING. 

"We have good reason to believe that if we obtain admission 
-into heaven, we shall still have opportunity, not only to return 
to earth, but to view the operation of God in distant spheres, and 
be his ministers in other worlds." 

REV. E. R. SANBORN. 

"There are sad hearts for whom death has made this world 
a tomb, which have been cheered and lifted into light and glory 
by the scintillations of love from an unknown world, which, un- 
seen, lies around us all. The gloom has been transferred into 
shimmering splendor, by processes more marvellous than any 
physicist has found. And souls to whom this world has been a 
hell, have been suddenly awakened to find it a heaven, surpass- 
ing any tale of seer or fairy." 

REV. C. MAURICE DAVIES, D. D. ; Father Carlo Cartoi. 



94 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

REV. GEO. WALTERS, Sydney, Australia, author "Plain 
Truths About Spiritualism." 

REV. N. F. RAVLIN ; Rev. Wm. Kerr, M. A., Tipton. 

CORA L. V. RICHMOND, lecturer and author. 

T. P. BARKAS, F. G. S. 

"I have investigated and experimented under every kind of 
reasonable test my ingenuity could devise. . . Notwith- 
standing all tests and all precautions, phenomena have taken 
place that are utterly inexplicable by reference to any known 
physical or psychological law. All this I have done with the cold 
eye and steady pulse of a scientist." 

WM. NEWTON, F. R. G. S. 

PHILIP PEARSALL CARPENTER, Naturalist. 

"I have left off believing in deaths (so-called)." 

ANNA CORA MO WATT, Actress and Novelist. 

SIR EDWARD LANDSEER; Dion Boucicault. 

WM. OXLEY, Egyptologist, author of "The Land of the 
Pharaohs." 

MADAM ELISE VAN CALCAR, editor of "Op de Gren- 
zen, van Twee Werelden," author "Hermione," "A Woman 
Only," "A Star among the Clouds," "The Second Pentecost," 
"Harvest and Seed Time," "The Philosopher's Stone," "Har- 
monious Education," etc. 

DR. H. DE GROOD, Professor, Groningen University. 

DR. VON DER LOEF, Author. 

F. W. H. MYERS, President of Society for Psychical Re- 
search, author of ''Phantasms of the Living." 

"Not, then, with tears and lamentations should we think of 
the blessed dead. Rather we should rejoice with them in their 
enfranchisement, and know that they are still minded to keep us 
as sharers in their joy. It is they, not we, who are working now, 
they are more ready to hear than we to pray ; they guide us as 
with a cloudy pillar, but it is kindling into steadfast fire." 

W. T. STEAD, editor "Review of Reviews," author and auto- 
matic spirit writer. 

PROFESSOR RAOUL (Mathematics), Geneva. 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 95 

P. BEVERLEY RANDOLPH, M. D., author ot "Pre- 
adamite Man," etc. 

S. B. BRITTAN, M. D., author "Man and His Relations," 
etc. 

H. JUNOR BROWNE, author "Holy Truth," "Comfort for 
the Bereaved," ''Higher Branches of Science," "A Rational 
Faith," etc. 

JABEZ C. WOODMAN, Counsellor at Law, Portland, Me., 
U. S. A. 

ALLAN PUTNAM, M. A., author of "Bible Marvel 
Workers.' 

R. H. WILLIAMS, M. A., author of "Text Book of Mes- 
merism.'' 

WASHINGTON IRVING said: 

"What could be more consoling than the idea, that the souls 
of those we once loved were permitted to return and watch over 
our welfare." . . "I see nothing in it (Spiritualism) that is in- 
compatible with the tender and merciful nature of our religion, 
or revolting to the wishes and affections of the heart." 

CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 

"Besides this eaith, and besides the race of men, there is an 
.nvisible word and a Kingdom of spirits: that world is around 
us, for it is everywhere ; and these spirits watch us, for they are 
commissioned to guard us." 

HORACE GREELEY, editor of the "New York Tribune." 

"I have sat with three others around a small table, with every 
one of out eight hands lying plainly, palpably on the table, and 
heard rapid writing with a pencil on paper, which, perfectly 
white, we had just previously placed under the table ; and have 
the next minute, picked up that paper with a sensible, straight- 
forward message of twenty to fifty words fairly written thereon. 
. . Yet, I am avi+p confident that none of the persons present, 
who were visible to mortal eyes, wrote it." 

B. L. FARJEON, author and noted linguist. 

BELLASHINI, Court Conjurer, remarks: 

"I have thoroughly examined with the minutest observation 



96 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

and investigation of the surroundings, including the table, and 
have not in the smallest instance found anything to be produced 
by means of prestidigitative manifestations or by mechanical ap- 
paratus.'"' 

HOUDIN, HAMILTON, JACOBS, RHYS, similar testi- 
mony. 

M. AUGUSTS VANQUERIE, Dramatist, Journalist, and 
Man of Letters. 

"T am happy to be able to say, as regards the existence of 
what are called spirits, that I have no doubt of it. . . Why 
should they not communicate to man by any means whatsoever; 
and why should not that means be a table?" 

THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. 

"If I have not satisfactory evidence of the genuineness of 
these phenomena which I have just described, then there is no 
such thing as evidence, and all the fabric of natural science may 
be a mass of imposture." 

PADRE SECCHI, an Italian priest of conspicuous ability in 
the Church of Rome, says : 

"Spiritualism will be the great event of the present century." 

EUGENE DE BONNEMERE, the well-known French 
Philosopher, Historian, Journalist, and Dramatist, whose "His- 
toire des Paysans" is almost a classic, published an admirable 
work, expository of the antiquity of Spiritualism, under the title 
of "The Soul and its Manifestations throughout History." 

COLONEL COUNT DE ROCHAS D'AIGLUN, who is 
at the head of the great Polytechnic School in Paris, and author 
of some highly important works on Psychic Science, accepts 
Spiritualism as a great scientific truth, and the action of invisible 
beings upon incarnate intelligences as a demonstrable fact. 

GENERAL PIX, a French writer, who adopts the nom de 
plume of "Henri Constant." 

In a work on "The Religion of the Future," he observes that 
"Spiritualism, a doctrine more powerful than all the combined 
forces which live in darkness, has ended by triumphing over all 
its enemies, and to-day it emerges from its protracted lethargy, 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 97 

more vital, more powerful and more robust than ever it was." 

RENE CAILLIE, son of the celebrated explorer who dis- 
covered Timbuctoo, published a work entitled "Christian Spirit- 
ualism," has written in eloquent terms of the lofty morality 
which it inculcates, and terms it 'the revelation of revelations." 

EDOUARD GRIMARD, Professor in the University of 
Paris, ex-Director of Normal Schools, a valued contributor to 
the "Revue Des Deux Mondes," and author of that excellent 
work, "La Plame Botanique Simplifiee," writes in his beautiful 
"An Escape into the Infinite," that Spiritualism "occupies itself 
with the most serious things of science, philosophy, morality, 
and religion ; in a word, with the loftiest preoccupations which 
can haunt the human brain." 

REV. W. STAINTON MOSES (Oxon.), M. A., author of 
"Spirit Teachings," "Higher Aspects of Spiritualism," "Psy- 
chographv," etc., wrote : 

"Spiritualism has proceeded by a process of permeation, and 
has rendered unique service to the cause of religion by adding 
knowledge to faith. There is nothing in the broad truths which 
we are taught that is incompatible with which the rightly inter- 
preted church requires us to believe. Indeed, there is nothing 
in what I ha\e learned that conflicts with the simple teachings 
of Jesus Christ, so far as they have been preserved to us. It is 
something to know that the whole fabric of religion, so far as it 
affects man, receives its sanction and stimulus from the doc- 
trines of the higher Spiritualism with which so many of us have 
made acquaintance. And in days when it is the fashion to bring 
up every time-honored truth for proof anew, when man has 
largely lost his hold on the ancient faith, when religion as a 
binding power is losing so much of its vitalizing influence, it is 
something to feel that by the mercy of that God who never fails 
to respond to the reasonable prayers of his creatures, we are 
being brought face to face with the reality of our spiritual exist- 
ence by experimental evidence adapted to our understanding. 
I see in Spiritualism no contradiction to that which I know of 
the real teaching's of the Christ." 



98 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

BISHOP J. P. NEWMAN., one of the most active and bril- 
liant Methodist Bishops, says. 

"Christianity embodies all that is religiously good and true. 
That the spirits of the departed have returned to earth is a be- 
lief that is ail but universal. Those eminent in the church for 
learning and piety hove ch"ri«hed this faith. Two worlds met in 
Bible times ; but dees the communication between the two 
worlds continue to this day ? It was the opinion of Wesley that 
Swedenborg was visited by angels and the spirits of his departed 
friends. And it was Paul who asked, 'Are they not all minister- 
ing spirits ?' " 

JAMES SMITH, the journalist, author and brilliant book- 
xeviewer of Melbourne. 

MADAME RUFINA NOEGGERATH, authoress of that 
striking work, "The Survival.'' 

"While declaring the reality of the facts of Spiritualism re- 
minds us that they have the voice of all antiquity in their favor, 
and are attested in our own times by men of the highest author- 
ity in science, whose good faith, integrity, and intelligence are 
above suspicion." 

REV. T. B. TAYLOR, M. A., M. D., author of "Lectures 
on the Resurrection of the Dead," "Death on the Plains," etc. 

JUDGE W. WTNDEYER, Sydney, N. S. W. 

HON. J. BOWIE WILSON, Sydney, N. S. W. 

MRS. CHANDOS LEIGH HUNT WALLACE, Editor 
"Herald of Health," (daughter of Leigh Hunt). 

GENERAL F. J. LIPPITT, Washington, U. S. A. 

PROFESSOR W. JAMES, Professor of Psychology, etc., 
Plarvard University. 

Oi a course of 45 lectures given by Professor James, 15 were 
on Spiritualism, or psychic phenomena. 

LORD LINDSAY. 

"A friend of mine was very anxious to find the will of his 
-grand-mother, who had been dead forty years, but could not 
even find the certificate of her death. I went with him to the 
Marshalls and we had a seance ; my friend asked his questions 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 99 

mentally. We were told the will had been drawn by a man 
named Walker, whc lived in Whitechapel, name of street and 
number was given. We found the man, and through his aid 
obtained a copy of the draft. ' ; 

EMMA HARDINGE BRITTEN, author "Modern Ameri- 
can Spiritualism," ''Nineteenth Century Miracles," "Faiths, 
Facts, and Frauds of Religious History," etc. 

GEN. W. H. PARSONS, attorney, essayist, author, Wash- 
ington, D. C. 

COUNTESS OF CAITHNESS, author of "Old Truths in a 
New Light." 

ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS, author "Principles of 
Nature," "Great Harmonia," '"Penetralia, Philosophy of Spirit- 
ual Intercourse," etc., etc. 

B. O. FLOWER, Founder of "The Arena," author of "Cen- 
tury of Sir Thomas More," 'The New Time," "Studies in the 
Social Cellar," etc. 

DR. THEODORE HAUSMANN, Washington, D. C. 

DR. GEO. VON LANDSDORFF, Baden. 

BENJAMIN COLEMAN, Journalist, London. 

H. D, JEN KEN, Barrister, London. 

E. W. COX, Sergeant-at-Law, London. 

RABBI SAMUEL WEIL, New York. 

W. D. C. Denovan, author "Evidences of Spiritualism." 

DR. WM. SHARPE, author and poet. 

PROFESSOR GEO. BUSH, Professor of Hebrew and Or- 
iental Literature, New York City University. 

HON. L. V. MOULTON, attorney and author, U. S. A. 

REV. CHARLES WICKSTEED, B. A., author of "A Vin- 
dication of the Beneficent Influence of Christianity," (London, 
1887), etc., etc. 

"This universal hope (of the Future Life) has further had its 
confirmation in the positively asserted and numerously attested 
and steadily believed instances or signs of the continued exist- 
ence in a spiritual form of persons who had passed the gates of 
death. Thousands and tens of thousands of our fellow creatures 

-LofC.- 



ioo WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

have borne testimony, and testimony that in any ordinary case 
would have been deemed by every one sufficient, that they had 
seen and had speech ot friends who had in the body died away 
from this earth." 

DR. SAMUEL EADON, M. D., LL. D., author of "The 
Antiquity of Man," etc. 

REV. THOMAS GREENBURY, of Leeds; Rev. Vine 
Williams ; Rev. William Ciement Kendall ; Rev. C. Ware ; Rev. 
H. Kendall, etc. 

REV. PETER DEAN, of Walsall, author of "What is Chris- 
tianity," etc. 

HUGO DALESI, a Parisian artist, whose pictures are held 
in great esteem ; Camille Chaigneau, a poet and psychic writer ; 
Drs. Chazarain and Dusart, both of them medical practitioners 
who are much esteemed; and Edouard Schure, author of "The 
Great Initiates," are among the many men of intellectual supe- 
liority in France who have publicly avowed themselves to be 
firmly convinced of the splendid and consoling truth that the 
so-called dead clo indeed return to counsel and to comfort us. 

PROFESSOR DENIS METZGER, who has published in a 
collective form under the title of "An Essay on Scientific Spirit- 
ualism," the eleven lectures which he delivered before the So- 
ciety for Psychic Studies in Geneva, declares that the "survival 
of the psychic being is now incontestably proved, and the abyss 
filled up, which seemed to separate the living from the so-called 
dead." 

F. DIONYS, one of the many French men of letters who 
have become firm adherents to Spiritualism, wrote an excellent 
work, entitled, "The Soul, its existence and Manifestations," in 
which he succeeded in showing unanswerably that there is an 
abundance of scientific proof of its existence. 

ARSENE HOUSSAYE, one of the most prominent of 
French litterateurs, as Poet, Dramatist, Novelist, and Journalist 
from 1844 downwards, wrote a beautiful work entitled "The 
Destinies of the Soul," in which he declared that : 

"The Science of Spiritualism penetrates the deepest and 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 101 

most mysterious secrets of Nature ;" adding that "no thinker of 
the highest eminence, from Solomon to Malebranche has ever 
denied the action of invisible spirits upon mankind." 

A French Abbe, who conceals his name, and adopts the sym- 
bol X., has published a remarkable book under the title of "The 
Religious Renovation," in which he points out that a new relig- 
ion is in process of formation, and that : 

"Christianity is about to be rejuvenated in some extraordin- 
ary manner as it will be by Spiritualism." 

ERNEST BOSC, the learned author of the "Grand Diction- 
aire d' Architecture," confidently predicts that the day is close at 
hand when Spiritualism will be recognized by official science, 
which will call it Psychism in order to avoid confessing its own 
perverse stupidity in refusing to accept the reality of its phe- 
nomena before. 

MICHAEL BONNAMY, examining magistrate, and mem- 
ber of the Scientific Congress of France, is the author of a mas- 
terly work entitled "The Reason of Spiritualism," which he de- 
fines at the revelation of the history of man, the justification of 
the place which he occupies in the chain of beings, and as psy- 
chology enlightened by revelation. 

J. BOUVERY, in his ably written treatise on "Spiritualism 
and Anarchy." discerns in the former the complete antidote to 
the latter ; and the one force which can fulfill the requirement of 
Renan for "the scientific organization of humanity." 

GABRIEL DELANNE, the gifted editor of the "Revue 
Scientifique et Morale du Spiritisme," in his "Experimental 
Demnostration of the Immortality of the Soul," claims that 
it will be by scattering the consolatory truths of Spirit- 
ualism broadcast, that we shall succeed in opening out 
the marvellous horizons of the future, and in bringing in the 
august era of the regeneration of humanity by the practice of 
veritable fraternity. 

ADOLPHE COSTE, in his essay on experimental idealism 
entitled "God and the Soul," proves the perfect adaptation of 



ib2 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

Spiritualism to this doctrine, and its absolute agreement with 
everything that is highest and best, in all the great philosophies 
and religions of the world. 

VICTOR DUCASSE, a French Barrister, practicing in the 
island of Mauritius, has splendidly vindicated Spiritualism from 
ecclesiastical attacks in a volume entitled "Spiritualism and the 
Church." 

FRANCOIS VALLES, Inspector General of Roads and 
Bridges in France, who is distinguished as a mathematician, has 
published several books on Spiritualism ; in one of which he 
makes the striking lemark that — 

'Tn forty years it has permitted us to enter into the posses- 
sion of more secrets than humanity, left to itself in the preced- 
ing ages, could have achieved in many centuries."' 

DR. N .SANTANGELO, Italy, author of "Animal Corpo." 

J. B. A. GOD1N, the enlightened and liberal founder of the 
tamous Familistere at Guise, an immense establishment con- 
ducted with signal success upon the profit-sharing principle, was 
a Spiritualist, as was likewise his devoted wife. 

Among men of intellect in France who have embraced the 
truths of Spiritualism, must be enumerated Laurent de Faget, 
the poet, who edits the "Progres Spirite ;" Leon Denis, the pop- 
ular lecturer, author of "Apres la Mort" and "Christianisme et 
Spiritisme;" P. G. Lewmarie, editor of the "Revue Spirite;" 
James Tissot, the distinguished artist, Monvoisin, who is like- 
wise a painter of high repute ; Capellaro, the sculptor ; Doctors 
Durand de Gros, Baraduc, Boucher, Gyet, Flascheon, Dupony 
and Chauvet de Tours, Judge de Montant; Puvis, the poet; 
Crouzet, Cordurie, and Ladame, all of them members of the 
French Bar; Mme. Lucie Grange, and the numerous ladies and 
gentlemen who constitute the governing body of the Societe de 
Librairie Spirite. 

DR. CHARLES RICHET, the eminent French scientist, 
writes, when speaking of that well known English work 
"Phantasms of the Living" — 

"It is the first time the future life has been scientifically stu- 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 103 

died ; and to deny the facts herein related, is to condemn science 
to inertia, and to substitute routine for progress.' 

FATHER LACORDAIRE, the famous preacher, whom all 
Paris flocked to hear, when he occupied the pulpit of Notre 
Dame, wrote : 

"In all times there were methods, more or less rare, of com- 
municating with spirits ; only formerly, a great mystery was 
made of what is to-day a popular formula. It is thus that God 
proposes that man should not forget that there are two worlds, 
— the one of the body, the other of the spirit." 

M. BAISSAC, a distinguished French author, sees in Spirit- 
ualism the power which will enable the mind, which is in man, 
to triumph over matter, and the foundation stone of the great 
Church of the future which will comprehend the entire human 
family within its limits. 

FATHER ROCA, a canon of the Roman Catholic Church, 
declares Spiritualism to be the fulfilment of the Scriptural proph- 
ecies, and more particularly of those which were uttered through 
the lips of Isaiah. 

DR. G. B. Ermacora (Padua). 

DR. GIUSEPPE MASUCCI (Naples). 

"I feel myself compelled to demolish the entire edifice of my 
philosophical convictions, experimentally arrived at, to which I 
have consecrated a good portion of my life. In short, I feel it 
to be my imperative duty to appeal to the nobler medical faculty 
to which I have the honor to belong, to lose no time in investi- 
gating these phenomena, and in bringing the causes of them into 
relation with the effects." 
SPANISH AND HISPANO-AMERICAN SPIRITUALISTS. 

DR. MANUEL SANZ BENITO, formerly Professor of 
Metaphysics, Logic, and Philosophy, in the University of 
Barcelona, and author of "The Spiritual Science," and other 
works. 

VISCOUNT DE TORRES-SOLANOT, formerly editor of 
and still a contributor to the "Revista de Estudios Psicolog- 
icos" of Barcelona. 



104 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

DON MIGUEL GIMENO EITO, editor-in-chief of "La 
Revelacion" of Alicante, founder of "The Spiritualist Theatre," 
and author of the "The Dramas of Space." 

DR. GARCIA LOPEZ, author of • 
erudite lecturer on scientific subjects, and the writer of "An 
Exposition and Defence of Spiritualism," a 'Refutation of Ma- 
terialism," and "Magic in the 19th Century." 

DON M. G. SORIANO, Marques of Monte, who relin- 
quished his title, on account of his democratic ideas, was the 
author of an able work entitled '"Spiritualism is Philosophy," 
and of "Controversies" and "Dialogues" on the same subject. 

DON FABIAN PALASI Y MARTIN, President of the 
Spiritualist Society of Saragossa, and editor of the Masonic Re- 
view "La Acacia, is the author of the "Compendium of Univer- 
sal Morality," which is a text-book in all the lay-schools in 
Spain and of a "Compendium of the Rules of Urbanity." 

DON D. CALVET DE BUDALLES, Professor in the 
School of Engineers at Barcelona, was a Poet and Dramatist of 
no ordinary distinction; and as a religious believer, he firmly 
held that there was no solution of continuity between Catholic- 
ism and Spiritualism, while his life was a beautiful exemplifica- 
tion of his doctrines. 

DON MIGUEL VIVES, President of the Federation of 
Spiritualists at Tarrasa, sees in the revelations of Spiritualism 
the agency which will impel men towards right thinking and 
right living, and will promote the fraternity of all souls, both in 
this life and in that which is to come. 

DR. OTERO ACEVETO, Professor of Nerve Surgery in 
Dr. Rubio's Institution, at Madrid. After experiments with 
Mediums, he became a convinced Spiritualist; and wrote "Los 
Espiritus" in 1893 ; "Los Fantasmas," "Lombroso and Spirit- 
ualism,' 'and "Fakirism and Science." He continues to be an 
earnest exponent and defender of Spiritualism. 

EMERSON remarked to me very deliberately while visiting 
him in his magnificent library at Concord, and speaking of 
Swedenborg and hero worship, — "I feel no need of personal 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 105 

spirit communications; for, to me, the universe is one grand 
spiritual manifestation." And then added, "These modern 
marvels interest my wife, as she accepts the reported fact that 
Swendenborg for many years conversed with angels and 
spirits." 

GOETHE states that he one day saw the exact counterpart 
of himself coming toward him. This was his double. When in 
the valley of meditation he had "night visions." 

POPE saw an arm apparently come through the wall, and 
made inquiries after its owner. 

DR. JOHNSON heard his mother call his name in a clear 
voice, though she was at the time in another city. 

LOYOLA, lying wounded during the siege of Pampeluna, 
saw one who encouraged him to prosecute his mission. 

DESCARTES was followed by an invisible person, whose 
voice he heard urging him to continue his researches after 
truth. 

Oliver Cromwell, lying sleeping on his couch, saw the cur- 
tains open, and a gigantic woman appear, who told him he 
would become the greatest man in England. 

BEN JOHNSON spent the watches of the night an inter- 
ested spectator of a crowd of Tartars, Turks, and Roman Cath- 
olics, who rose ana spiritually fought round his arm-chair till 
sunrise. 

BOSTOCK, the physiologist, saw figures and faces, and, 
there was one human face constantly before him for twenty- 
four hours, the features and headgear as distinct as those of a 
living person. 

BENVENUTO CELLINI, imprisoned at Rome, resolved 
to free himself by self-destruction, but was deterred by the ap- 
parition of a young woman of wondrous beauty, whose re- 
proaches turned him from his purpose. 

THE CAREY SISTERS.— Who has not read the beautiful 
poems of these ladies gifted with such fine intuitive perceptions 
and unusual and highly spiritual natures ? Phoebe Carey wrote : 

"I know that my loved ones come back just as I know I 



io6 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

think, or see, or know anything- else. It is no more wonderful 
to me that I should see and perceive with my soul than I am 
able to discern objects through my eyeballs." On one occasion 
when Alice was fifty years old, writes B. O. Flower in the Feb- 
ruary "Forum," speaking of her favorite little sister, Rhoda, 
who passed from life when she was only fifteeen years old, she 
said: "I have never to this day lost consciousness of the pres- 
ence of that child." Both the sisters beheld at intervals the ap- 
parition of their sisters. 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES' writings, especially his 
poems, are in the line of Spiritualism. Here follows one of his 
paragraphs : 

"Yeu don't know what plague has fallen on the practitioners 
of theology," said Dr. Holmes in his "Professor at the Break- 
fast Table." "Spiritualism," says the Professor, "is quietly un- 
dermining the traditional ideas of the future state, which have 
been and still are accepted — not merely in those who believe 
in it, but in the general sentiment of the community — to a 
larger extent than most good people seem to be aware of." He 
asserts that "this Nemesis of the pulpit comes in a shape it lit- 
tle thought of," and "ends with such a crack of old beliefs that 
the roar of it is heard in all the ministers' studies in Christen- 
dom." "You cannot have people of cultivation," continues the 
Professor, "of pure character, sensible enough in common 
things, large-hearted women, grave judges, shrewd business 
men, men of science, professing to be in communication with 
the spiritual world, and keeping up constant intercourse with 
it, without its gradually reacting on the whole conception of 
that other life." 

TENNYSON'S poems abound in the philosophy of Spirit- 
ualism. His interest in it was great. One of the most pleasant 
acts of his later life was to desire and receive a visit from W. 
Stainton Moses, the distinguished London author, editor, and 
spiritual medium, to whom he gave his autographically 
signed portrait. He may not have publicly announced himself 
a Spiritualist. Thousands of the most brilliant minds have not 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 107 

so done. Only Lheii personal friends knew of their firm faith 
in a knowledge of present spirit ministries. 

His poems can be intelligently understood only in the light 
of Spiritualism. Consider the following : 

Dare I say 

No spirit ever brake the band 

That stayed him from the native land, 

Where hrst he walked when claspt in clay ? 

No visual shade of someone lost, 
But he, the spirit himself, may come, 
Where all the nerve of sense is numb, 
Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost. 



Descend, and touch and enter, hear 
The wish too strong for words to name ; 
That in this blindness of the frame 
My Ghost may feel that thine is near. 

TENNYSON can be read best in the light of his trances. 
He says: 

And while I walked and talked as heretofore, 
I seemed to move among a world of ghosts, 
And feel myself the shadow of a dream. 

Of the intercommunion of spirits in its higher forms, he 
says : 

"I do not see why its central truth is untenable. If we 
would think about this truth, it would become very natural and 
reasonable to us. Why should those who have gone before not 
surround and minister to us, as legions of angels surrounded 
and ministered to our Lord?" 

In "Blackwood's" is this interesting bit of evidence, sup- 



108 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

plied by Professor Knight, in a paper, entitled, "A Reminis- 
cence of Tennyson :" 

'"We then went on — I do not remember what the link of 
connection was — to talk of Spiritualism, and the Psychical So- 
ciety, in which he was much interested, and also of the prob- 
lems of Theism. He spoke of the great Realm of the Unknown, 
which surrounds us, as being also known, and having intelli- 
gence at the heart of it; and he told more stories than one of 
spirit manifestations as authentic emanations from the un- 
known, and as a proof that out of darkness light could reach 
us. 

LOWELL, ever brilliant and inspirational, recognized the 
great truth of spirit influx in some of its most practical relations 
to life, as these lines show : 

"We see but half the causes of our deeds, 
Seeking them wholly m the other life. 
And heedless of the encircling Spirit-world, 
Which, though unseen, is felt, and sows in us 
All germs of pure and world-wide purposes." 

HENRY WARD BEECHER'S Spiritualism was well 
known, not only to clairvoyants and trance mediums, but to 
many of his congregations. In a discourse delivered in 1878, 
he used these emphatic words : 

"I suppose that from the beginning of things this world has 
been open to the influence of spirits. It is not difficult to be- 
lieve that there is a spiritual influence which we can neither un- 
derstand nor appreciate. This is certainly the doctrine of the 
New Testament (and the Old Testament as well). It was taught 
by the Saviour and the Apostles that both divine and demoniac 
influences roll in (rather flow in) upon the human soul." 

KANT, a name illustrious in the literature of the world, was 
a poet-prophet, as well as a profound philosopher, dreaming of 
the coming of spiritual manifestations. In his "Dream of the 
Ghost-Seer," he says : 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 109 

"It will be hereafter proved that the human soul, even in this 
life, is in constant communication with the spiritual world, and 
that these arc susceptible of mutual impressions ; but ordinarily 
these impressions are unperceived." 

PRINCE OF WALES.— "Recently His Royal Highness 
was admitted," says London "Light," of Feb. 15, 1902, "to the 
fellowship of the Royal Society, listening to an address by Sir 
Wm. Crookes on "Radial Activity, the Electron Theory, and 
the Finer Forces.' Near the close of this address, Mr. Crookes 
said, 'I think we have most reached the stage where matter and 
force seem to merge into one another.' " Referring to some 
of the statements in this brilliant address of Sir Wm. Crookes, 
His Royal Highness said: 

"I wish to offer my sincere thanks to Sir William Crookes 
for his very interesting lecture, which I am sure we have all list- 
ened to with great pleasure. If I may be allowed to do so, I 
should like to congratulate him on his treating such abstruse 
questions as to make them intelligible and attractive to those 
who, like myself, unfortunately cannot lay claim to such scien- 
tific knowledge. But, while fully realizing how far beyond my 
reach this knowledge is, I can assure you of my hearty sym- 
pathy with that scientific study and research which now, more 
than ever, has become so important and essential in our 
national life." 

Now mark ! This eminent scientist, distinguished through- 
out the enlightened world as Spiritualist as well as scientist, so 
delighted the Prince of Wales while lecturing upon radiant mat- 
ter, invisible electrons and the finer occult forces, that he heart- 
ily thanked him for making these questions so intelligible and 
palatable. It is well understood in the higher circles of society, 
American and English, that Queen Victoria, not only sympa- 
thized with, but at heart was really a Spiritualist. This fact was 
published in severai 01 the English journals, and so far as I 
know, was never publicly disputed. 

CHOPIN'S music rendered his name on earth immortal. 
He was a spiritual medium from his earliest childhood, as the 



no WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

following proves : '"One night when about five years old, the 
nurse hearing a noise, rose from her bed just in time to see 
Fritz-Frycek, as this child was called, marching down stairs 
into the drawing room in his long, white night-dress. Follow- 
ing him, she saw him, to her amazement, a few minutes later, 
standing and placing upon the piano, playing the very pieces 
that had been played m the previous portion of the evening. 
Hastening back to the master and mistress of the house, she 
told them that their child was 'either mad, or possessed by an 
evil spirit;' for surely, no child could play like that. Madame 
Chopin soon appeared, and listening in the doorway for a few 
moments, to the marvelous melody that his fingers evoked from 
the piano, was as charmed as surprised, and with motherly love, 
she threw her shawl around him and taking him back to his 
room, said, 'Sleep, now, my dear child, and you shall play the 
piano to-morrow all you desire. 5 " The mother of Chopin was a 
magnificent pianist, and here was a genius, a sensitive, with an 
inherited tendency for music, and musical spirits from the 
higher spheres, seeing it, influenced him to discourse or evoke 
those sweet and heavenly strains of music. In after years he 
had visions, and entered a mental state generally denominated 
ecstasy, 

PROFESSOR HENRY KIDDLE, writer, author, and 
►Superintendent of the New York City schools, and an ardent 
Spiritualist, thus wrote : 

"Spiritualism not only demonstrates in a most positive man- 
ner the fact of a future conscious existence, but it is an encour- 
aging help to all religious truth. The word religio, as used by 
Cicero and other Latin writers, was not derived from religare, 
to bind back, as some, following Lastantius, have asserted, but 
from religere, to think or ponder deeply, as being that which 
causes inward meditation or contemplation, leading to the inner 
life, the life of the soul, with which true religion is especially 
concerned. Religion is essentially an emotion, arising from the 
activity of our spiritual nature and directed to spiritual beings. 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? m 

It is indeed a tie, for it binds man to God, and all mankind to 
each other. * * 

"The religion of Modern Spiritualism is entirely rational 
and conforms to our best intuitions; it presents to the mind no 
dogmas for compulsory acceptance and belief, no insoluble 
mysteries and theological absurdities inconsistent with our in- 
tuitive conceptions of a God of infinite love, wisdom and benefi- 
cence. It is universal and cosmopolitan, containing the good 
and true of all religions." 

"I have witnessed marvelous manifestations through my son's 
organization, which I could account for only upon the hypothe- 
sis that the agencies were spirits." Then he added, "Dr. John- 
son is reported to have written, 'that the dead are seen no more 
I will not undertake to maintain against the concurrent and un- 
varied testimony of all ages and all nations." 

BARON VON HUMBOLDT, the great Shakespeare of 
science, took a deep interest in modern spirit manifestations. 
x\ecordingly. — 

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL COUNT VON LUTTI- 
CHAU testifies that a dinner party in which the subject of Spir- 
itualism came up during the conversation, Baron von Hum- 
boldt said: 'The facts are undeniable; it remains for science 
to furnish an explanation of them." 

ARCHBISHOP WHATELEY, churchman and skilled 
logician, embraced Spiritualism before his death, as did the 
elder Robert Owen, the great English philanthropist. May we 
not here exclaim, "What an array of talent, — what a cloud of 
witnesses ! 

DR. CHALMERS sa : d : 

"It is a very obvious principle, although often forgotten in 
the pride of prejudice and controversy, that what has been seen 
by one pair of human eyes is of force to countervail all that has 
been reasoned or guessed at by a thousand human understand- 
ings." 1 have seen tables, pianos and other furniture raised up 
and moved about without the contact of human hands. I have 
seen human bodies, while entranced, levitated, borne about the 



ii2 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

room, and carried up to the ceiling. I have seen hands held in 
a ilame of fire for two minutes, yet remained unburned. I have 
seen the sick healed by the laying on of hands. I have seen 
spirit forms materialized, walk in our midst, and then vanish 
from sight. I have seen uneducated mediums, while entranced, 
speak in several different tongues as upon the day of Pentecost. 
I have seen writing without visible hands, thus confirming the 
hand- writing upon the wall, and the writing of Elijah to Jeh- 
oram after his entrance into the world of spirits. These and 
other phenomena still more marvelous are among the "signs" 
— the "greater works'' — that Jesus said should follow those 
who believed on him. 

THOMAS F. EDISON, whose fame has gone out through 
all the world, — the inventive genius and "science wizard," as 
he has been called, was but seven years old, and before he had 
attended school, when his hand was controlled to write very 
clearly by an unseen sp ri intelligence. John Eggleston writes 
(see '"'Banner of Light, May 2, 1896). 

"Thomas Edison's parents were Spiritualists, and I have 
many times sat in circles in their home when this great inventor 
was a mere child." 

Only two years ago when on a visit to Hudson Tuttle, Ber- 
lin Heights, Ohio, he kindly took me around in his carriage to 
the old brick house where the Edisons once lived, and gave me 
some very interesting accounts of the family and their medium- 
istic gifts. 

A gentleman of Port Huron, Michigan, writing to Mr. Egle- 
ston of New York, states as follows : "I have known Thomas 
Edison from a boy, and all of his father's family. His parents 
were good Spiritualists, and a son, William Pitt Edison, was a 
pronounced believer in the phenomena, and I understand that 
Thomas is also a believer in spirit-return and mediumship, but 
that he does not talk upon the subject except to persons he is 
familiar with." 

"Spiritualists have long taught that the "spiritual body" 
mentioned by Paul is a substantial body. Photography has now 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 113 

demonstrated tins, for the spiritual bodies of spirits have been 
photographed and identified. Spiritualists have further taught 
that surrounding every human being there is a refined ethereal- 
ized aura — an emanation — dark hued, gray, white or golden, 
according to character and grade of moral development. Sci- 
ence now steps in and demonstrates this. M. Jodko (see 
"Papers in LTnitation) using the Rumkorff coil in connection 
■with the Crookes' tube, has made these aural impressions of 
hands and forms upon the sensitised plate. 

"M .Jodko has made more than 3,000 experiments with dif- 
ferent persons and has been enabled to establish as facts : 

1 st — The existence of a specific emanation proceeding from 
the human body and differing according to individuals and tem- 
peraments. 

2nd — Certain objects, among others plants and magnets, 
manifest this emanation also, which is always capable of being 
photographed. 

3d — This emanation varies according to the condition of 
health to such a degree that it may reveal several days in ad- 
vance a disease which is about to show itself, and indicate the 
particularly weak point in the organism. 

4th — When the hands of two persons are presented to the 
sensitive plate with fingers placed in opposition to each other, 
the direction of the emanation is quite different where persons 
are repugnant (antipathetic) to each other, where neutral and 
sympathetic, so that aside from pathologic diagnosis we may 
obtain a psychologic diagnosis. In case of antipathy between the 
persons whose fingers are thus placed in near proximity to the 
plate the emanations repel each other ; in the case of persons of 
neutral dispositions towards each other the emanations simply 
remain apart, while in case of persons in sympathy with each 
other the emanations rush towards each other." 

And so Spiritualism and Science unite in demonstrating im- 
mortality. 

Carl du Prei is quoted as saying, that "this connection of 
physics with Spiritualism will really extend to a vast extent." 



ii4 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

Undoubtedly! Science, Spiritualism, and true religion are in 
perfect accord. 

PROFESSOR HYSLOP, previously referred to in these 
pages, a gentleman connected with and occupying a chair in the 
Columbia University, New York, is an avowed Spiritist, if belief 
in an intercommunion between the worlds seen and unseen, 
constitutes one. The same may be doubtless said of Professor 
James, of Harvard University, also mentioned before, and con- 
sidered by many, the leading psychologist of the world. 

The previous skepticism, and cold, dreary materialistic ten- 
dencies of Professor Hyslop are exemplified in the following 
quotations from his new book, and published in a late "Banner 
of Light" (1902), from the pen of E. A. Brackett, a clear-headed 
thinker, whose moral integrity was never questioned. "It is 
reported," said Mr. Brackett, on what appears to be good 
authority, "that after employing Mrs. Piper, the Psychical Re- 
search Society had admitted others outside of the society at the 
modest sum of ten dollars a sitting, and an additional fee for 
paying their clerk for recording the communication." This is 
spirit intercourse with a high tariff, and reminds us of Henry 
Slade, who, reaching London and exhibiting his diamonds, 
charged a guinea for a half-hour's conversation with spirits. He 
is now a subject of charity. No man can very long serve God 
and mammon. "Professor Hyslop's book," continues Mr. 
Brackett, "which was to astonish the world, is now before the 
public, and here follow extracts :" 

"First. — No one except Dr. Hodgson and my wife was to 
know that I was to have the sittings, and only Dr. Hodgson 
was to know the arrangements. This plan was carried out in 
entire secrecy. 

"Second. — The arrangements for the sittings were not to 
be made with Mrs. Piper in her normal state, but with the 
trance personalities in her trance state. 

"Third. — The arrangements for my sittings were not made 
in my name, but in the pseudonym of 'Four Times Friend' so 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 115 

that neither the supj ahminal nor the subliminial of Mrs. Piper 
could have any cine to my identity. 

"Fourth. — When I went to conduct the experiments and be- 
fore reaching tlie house of Mrs. Piper, about 200 feet from the 
house and whiie in a closed coach, I put on a mask covering the 
whole of my face and entered the house wearing the mask, met 
Mrs. Piper and went on with the sitting in this condition. 

"Fifth. — When introduced to Mrs. Piper it was under the 
name of Mr. Smith, which is the usual name by which Dr. 
Hodgson introduced strangers. I bowed to her without utter- 
ing a sound, the object being to conceal my voice equally as 
well as my face. 

"Sixth.--In the whole series of my sittings, Mrs. Piper 
never heard my voice in her normal state, except twice, when 
I changed it into an unnatural tone to utter a sentence, in one 
case only four words. 

"Seventh. — In the whole course of the sittings I was careful 
not to touch Mrs. Piper, and I never came into any contact 
with her to render any muscular suggestion possible, except, 
perhaps, half a dozen times when I seized the hand while writ- 
ing, to place it on the writing pad which it was escaping. Once 
I held her head while she was straightened in the chair in which 
she was sitting. But at all other times I avoided every form of 
contact that could even make muscular suggestion conceivable. 

"Eighth. — The record shows that the facts obtained were 
either without any questions at all, or without questions calcu- 
lated to suggest the answers given. I was extremely careful to 
avoid verbal suggestion. 

"Ninth. — During the writing I stood behind and to the right 
of Mrs. Piper, in a position which concealed any view of me 
and my movements absolutely from any visual knowledge of 
Mrs. Piper, whether supraliminal or subliminal, even had her 
eyes been open instead of closed in the trance. It was neces- 
sary to take this position in order to be able to read the writing 
as it went on.'' 

This is not reproduced here so much to show its utter ab- 



n6 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

surdity, as to illustrate the mental, moral and magnetic atmos- 
phere that Mrs. Piper has had to encounter. If those who once 
dwelt here have not lost their appreciation of mirth, there must 
have been a merry time on the other side, watching the Profes- 
sor trying to conceal his identity so as to escape Mrs. Piper's 
subliminal self and the possibility of muscular suggestion. He 
has some reputation in sleight-of-hand tricks, but this seems to 
have been overshadowed by his attempt to personate one of the 
great family of Smith. 

The above extracts are absolutely amazing, considering that 
so many of the brightest, and brainiest men of the world have, 
alter years of patient and critical examination of occult, or spir- 
itual phenomena, announced themselves Spiritualists. This Co- 
lumbia professor calls to mind the cowardly Nicodemus of the 
Pharisees, who went to see Jesus "by night." 

And further, the consummate ignorance of this professor 
concerning necessary conditions for sensitives, — ignorance 
concerning environments, magnetic states, the chemistry of the 
finer forces, the auras of dissimilar temperaments, and the ryth- 
mic sympathies existing between spirits incarnate and discar- 
nate, are appalling. 

Think of it i This university man of New York going to a 
seance, masked, — going, concealing his view from the medium, 
— going under a false name, going as a detective in a closed 
carriage, thus carrying the spirit of deception, suspicion and 
fraud into the seance room, which room should be dedicated 
and consecrated to cleanliness of body, purity of soul and the 
sublimity of angel ministries. And astonishing as it may fur- 
ther seem, Dr. Hodgson was a party to all this "psychical re- 
search flummery." It may not be amiss for me to say right 
here that I am an interested and paying member of the Psy- 
chical Research Society (or was till October 20th, when I with- 
drew); but, stoutly disapproved of all such proceedings as the 
above; and also, as I do of Dr. Hodgson's accepting the testi- 
money of the sectarian, Rev. S. L. Krebs (Reading, Pa.) relat- 
ing to the mediumship of the Bangs Sisters, in preference to 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 117 

the testimony of the honored Lyman C. Howe, and I may add, 
many other intelligent and scholarly Spiritualists who have sat 
with these mediums at times for days, months, and years. This 
walking on stilts with the assumption of superiority, on the part 
of certain Psychic Researchers, is as silly as it is distasteful to 
science, and truly cultured society. It is not stiange that mil- 
lions of Spiritualists are asking, when will Psychical Research 
Society stop "thrashing over old straw?" What have they 
really accomplished? What have they demonstrated in the in- 
terests of truth that has not been known for a generation and 
more to the great body of English and American Spiritualists? 
SENATOR LELAND STANFORD, late Governor of Cali- 
fornia, and founder of the Leland Stanford Jr. University, of 
California, one of the best institutions of learning — while com- 
paratively new — of America, which was instigated and inspired 
from the spirit world. This University is situated at Palo Alto, 
about a mile from the railway station, and 34 miles from San 
Francisco. The family of Stanfords was blessed with one son, Le- 
land, who while traveling in Europe with his father was taken 
ill at Florence, Italy, and soon died at the age of 16, the very 
morning time of life. He was an uncommonly brilliant young 
man, and both intellectually and morally very promising. While 
Governor Stanford was watching by his bedside (see National 
Cyclopedia of American Biography, Vol. II., page 129), wearied 
out with a proionged care, he dropped asleep, and in that sleep 
he dreampt that his son said to him: ''Father, don't say you 
have nothing to live for ; you have a great deal to live for, — live 
for humanity, father."' V hile this dream was passing through 
the brain of the father, death took the son. Determined to 
carry out the idea suggested, he made up his mind to found the 
great university which bears his son's name, — the Leland Stan- 
ford Junior University. This recorded biographical sketch re- 
jminded me of what Thos. W. Stanford said at the close of a 
spiritual seance in his house, — "The Stanford family is a Spirit- 
ualistic family." When the Stanfords lost their son by death, 
their hearts necessarily ached in deepest sorrow. They loved 



n8 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

him as only parents could love a most promising child. Upon 
him they looked for the staff to lean upon in their declining 
vears. No artist can put on canvas, no poet express their soul- 
felt grief. Where should — where could they go for comfort? 
They had no faith in orthodox creeds, hence they naturally 
turned to the higher heavenly world for some backward glance, 
for some message from him who had been transplanted from 
earth to the world invisible. They consulted sensitives, clair- 
voyants, and several highly developed mediums, and with the 
greatest satisfaction. Among these were Mrs. Ada Foye, Mrs. 
Maude Lord, and others. Bishop Newman attended some of 
these seances, opening them with prayer. Governor Stanford 
also consulted mediums in New York. Judge A. H. Dailey in- 
formed me only a few weeks since that he had sat in seances 
with Senator Stanford and family. The family became thor- 
oughly convinced that they received direct messages from their 
son. These messages were so satisfactory and spiritually up- 
lifting that they resolved to strictly carry out his wishes as ex- 
pressed to them from the spiritual world; and this wish was, 
that the most fitting mausoleum that they could construct to 
his memory would be a non-sectarian university where Ameri- 
can youth might be educated physically, mentally, morally, and 
spiritually, — educated to properly attain unto a royal man and 
womanhood. 

What then, was the prompting undertone — the inspiring 
motive that constructed this colossal, non-sectarian institution? 
The only legitimate answer that can be given it — is Spiritualism. 
True, it was said that when Senator Stanford was under fire 
for political preferment, that he said, — "he was not a Spiritualist 
in the common acceptation of that term." Quite possibly he 
may have said this. Hundreds of genuine Spiritualists could 
say the same when confronted with some of the follies and ex- 
travagances that have been hitched onto Spiritualism. But the 
solid, substantial fact remains, that the Stanfords were devoted 
Spiritualists, and not materialists, or doubting agnostics, and 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 119 

this magnificent university, reported with its buildings, grounds 
and vineyards to be worth 50 millions of dollars, is the richest 
in America, if not in the world. 

THOMAS W. STANFORD, of Melbourne, Australia, Leland 
Stanford's brother, during last year held eighty seances with 
Mr. C. Bailey, a very remarkable Australian medium. Twenty 
of these I had the pleasure of attending myself. This Australian 
Stanford, United States ex-Vice Consul, is a man of decided cul- 
ture, influence and wealth. He has already put hundreds of 
thousands of dollars into the California Stanford University, 
and on the front of the great library building his name is ele- 
gantly carved — a monument to both his love of literature and 
Spiritualism. 

THE CZAR OF RUSSIA.— There are heads uncrowned 
quite as intellectual and worthy as those crowned, wearing the 
symbols of royalty. But to those who are still tremulously ask- 
ing, "Have any of the rulers of the Pharisees believed on him?" 
I beg to remind them that a Vienna cable informs the English 
and American journals that "A Russian Liberal paper printed 
in Stuttgart states that the Czar is suffering from nervous affec- 
tion. The paper further informs us that the Czar has placed 
himself under the care of Dr. Phillips, a Spiritualist and mes- 
meric healer. Dr. Phillips has summoned the spirit of Alexan- 
der II T. at the Czar's behest, and receives messages foretelling 
imperial and domestic events. The doctor, it is alleged, treats 
the Czar mesmencally as spiritually impressed from the invisi- 
ble world." 

Be this cable report true or not true, the fact remains undis- 
puted, that D. D. Home, the Davenport brothers and other 
mediums, erave seances to a previous reigning Alexander and 
various others of the royal household with entire satisfaction. 
Spiritualism reaches from the peasant's hut to palaces of 
royalty. 

Spiritualism is the higher naturalism, and spiritual law, like 
life, is everywhere. The supernatural is the natural upon the 
spiritual plane of existence. If Jesus in His time had telephoned 



120 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

from Jerusalem to Bethany, or telegraphed from Jericho to a 
friend residing at the foot of snowy Hermon, these methods of 
communication would have been pronounced astounding mir- 
acles. Can He who made the eye not see? Can He who 
ordained the law, whether in the sprouting of an acorn or in 
the ordaining of a constellation, not modify it, or bring into 
activity a higher spiritual law transcending it ? In the measure- 
less realm of absolute being, Personality reigns supreme. And 
so in the over-encircling lesser realms, minor spirit personali- 
ties, reigning finitely, produce spiritual manifestations made 
visible to us under proper conditions. They are natural. And 
being natural to the plane of conscious life and intelligence that 
produced them, they as naturally, as scientifically, demonstrate 
the future existence of man. "The vast unverse is to me," said 
Emerson, "one grand spiritual manifestation." And the greater 
necessarily includes the less. 

Personally, I know that the dead are alive — know that 
friends departed live and manifest to us still — know by careful 
observation and patient experience, in connection with reason 
and my best judgment, that the angels of God are about us and 
minister to us. It is knowledge. And I can rejoicingly say 
with the aoostle, "For we know that if the earthly house of this 
tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house 
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." 

Possibly some narrow-minded ecclesiastic may solemnly say : 
"I have never seen the spiritual manifestations." Quite likely. 
Millions have not seen the seas, lakes, and canals upon the 
planet Mars, nor the telescope that discovered them. Others 
have not seen San Diego, London, or Calcutta. The more the 
pity ! Ignorance, whether churchianic or agnostic, ought to be 
very modest. What individuals have not seen does not enter 
into the moral equation for determining truth. 

Premonitions, hypnotism, telepathy, trance, visions, clair- 
voyance, psychometry and other varied spirit phenomena are 
all about us, and to ignore them without the most candid, crit- 
ical investigation is the shabbiest sort of self-stultification. Hav- 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 121 

ing witnessed levitation, i. e. a human being floating in the air 
at high noon (himself and myself in the room alone), I am quite 
prepared to believe that the "Spirit of the Lord caught away 
Philip'' from the sight of the eunuch, leaving him afar off at 
Azotus. Having seen a medium's hand put by the entrancing 
spirit into the full blaze of a kerosene lamp and there held un- 
burned, I am all the more inclined to believe that Shadrach, 
Meshach, and Abed-nego walked in the fiery furnace, "the form 
of the fourth" as a protecting shield being in their midst. Hav- 
ing witnessed spirit writing in the air as well as upon walls by 
a vanishing spirit hand, all the more readily do I accept the re- 
corded account of "the fingers of a man's hand" mystically writ- 
ing upon the wall in Belshazzar's palace. Soundly, said the most 
distinguished of the Beechers, "Modern spiritual manifestations 
strengthen faith." And just how sectarian religionists can be- 
lieve and piously preach that the sun and the moon stood still, 
and that the whale swallowed Jonah, and yet imperiously deny 
the long-prayed-for and now realized spiritual gifts and manifes- 
tation?, as attested by many of the most highly cultured, most 
scientific and most erudite men of this and of foreign countries, 
is to me not only painfully unaccountable, but it must and does 
seriously try the patience of all enlightened Christians. 

Is it reiterated, "I have not witnessed the spirit manifesta- 
tions, I have not seen spirits?" What of it? Francisco Sizzi 
was once in a similar predicament. These were his words : 

"Moreover, the satellites of Jupiter are invisible to the 
naked eye, and therefore can exercise no influence over the 
earth, and therefore would be useless, and therefore do not 
exist." 

This is logic gone mad. Ecclesiastics should not only be 
abreast of but in advance of their age, that they may fulfill the 
command, "Feed My Sheep." But corn that yellowed in Ked- 
ron's Valley two thousand years ago will not feed the hungry of 
to-day; rechewing the churchianic husks of the post-Constan- 
tine period will not fatten our souls in love and wisdom ; nor will 
the snuffing of sulphurous Dead Sea breezes cure moral leprosy. 



122 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

The people are calling for a living Christ, a living gospel, and 
for earnest, inspirational pulpit exegeses of such living issues as 
the moral education of the masses, the abolition of poverty, 
thought-transference, hypnotism, telepathy, psychometry and 
spiritual manifestations — all of which point to the bettering of 
life here, or to demonstrations of a life immortal hereafter. 

The hereaftei hells are just as real as the heavens. Heaven's 
rest is not idleness; the soul's activities are intensified by the 
transition. The future life is a social life, a constructive life, a 
retributive life, and a progressive life, where the soul sweeps 
onward and upward, in glory transcending glory, through the 
ages of eternity. 

Spiritualism does not say "good night" in the hour of death, 
but rather gives the glad assurance of a most welcome "good 
morning" just across the crystal river. It does not drape the 
mourner's home in gloom but lifts the grim curtain, permitting 
us to hear responsive words of undying affection from those we 
love. Oh, let us rejoice, then, and be glad in these Easter years 
of Spiritualism, for they give life a new meaning. They put new 
courage, new strength, new intelligence, new religious aspira- 
tions, into our daily duties. 

The primitive Christians were religious Spiritualists. They 
often saw Jesus in visions, and in His name they healed the sick. 
Spiritualism, the complement of Christianity, sweetens the bit- 
terest cup, helps bear the heaviest burden, lightens the darkest 
'day, comforts the saddest heart, and gathering up the kindly 
efforts we make in behalf of our fellow-men, transfigures them 
with its brightness, ennobles them with its moral grandeur, and 
throws around them the circling aureole of fadeless splendors. 
And further, by and through its holy ministries, we know that 
the grave is no prison house for the soul, but that life, progres- 
sive is ours, enternal in the heavens. The higher Christianity 
and Spiritualism are coming together. Their aspirations and 
aims are one. Love is Christ's test of Christianity — that Christ 
Jesus who was "the first born among many brethren." "We 
know," said the beloved John, "that we have passed from death 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 123 

unto life, because we iove the brethren." Pure love, remember, 
is the divine seal of Christian discipleship. To this end that 
erudite English churchman, Rev. H. W. Momerie, M. A., D. 
Sc, LL. D., professor of logic and metaphysics in King's Col- 
lege, London, exclaims : 

"I say Christ's Christianity, for there are plenty of other 
Christianities in the world. But Christ's consists entirely in 
morally and spiritually perfecting the individual character. His 
salvation is neither more nor less than self-development. 
Christ's plan was a very simple one ; it is all summed up in a 
single word. He taught that men were to be saved by love. 
And if you look into the rationale of this, you will see that His 
plan of salvation is profoundly philosophical, perfectly in har- 
•nonv with the best ethics and the highest metaphysics of to- 
day." 

When a few more man-made creeds wither, die and rot into 
deserved non-entity. When Christ's Christianity, which is pure 
Spiritualism, prevails, when nominal Christians become more 
Christlike and nominal Spiritualists more spiritual, the chasm 
of shibboleths and almost brutal dogmatisms, will be bridged, 
souls will be baptized afresh, estranged hands will be clasped, 
unsympathizing hearts will be warmed by the pentecostal flames 
of love, angels will the more readily daily walk and talk with 
mortals, and all be recognized as constituting a vast fraternal 
commonwealth of gods, angels, spirits, and men; and love, pure, 
unselfish love — Christ's universal love — will then be the one 
acknowledged spiritual religion of the world. 

Science and Spiritualism combine to demonstrate the future 
life. Professor M. T. Falconer of the Royal Technical Institute, 
Alessandria, in Piedmont, narrates the results of experiments 
with a medium conducted by M. M. de Rochas, Richet, Dariex 
and others, members of the Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, at 
which the following occurred: movements of objects at a dis- 
tance, spirit hands, the levitation of the medium and her seat, 
etc. ; enough to make the scientist, M. de Rochas, declare "that 
he is more and more convinced that, outside of the effects re- 



124 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

suiting from a purely physical cause, there are others due to an 
intelligent cause or causes, altogether independent of the 
medium and of the spectators.*' 

The Professor also gives an account of a startling instance 
of levitation that came under his notice. "The medium was 
Magnai, a law barrister of Pisa. Dr. Del Torto, formerly editor 
of the 'Revista d' Ipnotismo' in Florence, and his cousin were 
talking about levitation one day in a garden in that city. The 
Doctor's cousin was indulging in some scoffing talk on the sub- 
ject, ridiculing the invisible spirits, and he mockingly challenged 
them to lift him from the ground, in the open air, in broad day- 
light, on the very spot. No sooner said than done. He was 
raised by some invisible agency and then thrown down with such 
violence as to break one of his arms, which had to be set at the 
hospital." There are stili in this world a lot of pompous, self- 
sufficient know-every-thmgs who might be benefited by similar 
lessons. 

Probably our "Christian" brethren who have "fallen away" 
from the truths and from the promised New Testament "gifts," 
will not credit the above, though affirmed and testified to by a 
distinguished living Professor in a Royal Institute — but they 
can believe that an angel or spirit, wrestled with Jacob, when 
all alone, till "break of day," (Genesis 25th) — wrestled till he 
wrestled Jacob's "thigh out of joint!" Oh yes, they can believe 
that, because it is recorded to have happened several thousand 
years ago. Indeed they can believe — they can gape at and 
swallow the old and dry and dead semi-barbarous past — yet, 
scoffingly deny God's living present. Such sectarian infidelity 
shocks both my sensitive and religious nature! And as our 
Prayer Book pleadingly says : "Do, good Lord, we beseech 
thee show them" — these unbelieving nineteenth century "infi- 
dels," calling themselves Christians — "thy way." 

The gospels of the New Testament — the signs, wonders, 
visions, trances and recorded healing gifts, are in perfect unison 
with the Spiritualism of to-day. If one mortal who had died, 
appeared again, that appearance would prove a future life. But 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 125 

apples continue to fall — and so do the spirits of the dead con- 
tinue to reappear and give astounding proofs of their identity. 
Jesus "materialized" and appeared suddenly to the disciples as 
they sat at meat in an upper chamber, the door being shut. 
(John 20-19, 20 )- 

Matthew assures us that when the Marys came to the tomb 
of Jesus there was an angel of the Lord present with raiment 
white as snow (Matthew xviii : 1-7). But Mark in describing 
the same account says that it was a "young man" vestured in 
white. Luke more explicit declares that the women saw "two 
men" clothed in dazzling garments. The points of difference are 
minor, but this fact is important — the same personages are 
called angels, spirits and men — men arrayed in white. 

In the Acts — that is — the doings of the apostles, first 
chapter, we are informed that for forty days Jesus frequently ap- 
peared to the disciples and then vanished from sight. Certainly 
they were not hypnotized, but rather clairvoyant. And so when 
Paul, the great Christian persecutor, was nearing Damascus, 
full of bitterness, 'suddenly there shone round about him a light 
out heaven ; and, when he had fallen to earth, he heard an ac- 
cusing voice, saying, 'Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?'" 
And to his trembling question, "Who art thou?" the voice re- 
plied, "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest." In these days of 
agnostic "smartness" and churrhly bigotry, such an occurrence 
would be explained by preachers who feast upon faith and diet 
upon "donations," as ventriloquism, hypnotism or some form 
of legerdemain. But with Paul it was a pretty serious spiritual 
fact, causing a three days' blindness. Ananias, a medium with 
healing gifts, laid hands on Saul and restored his sight. "While 
I prayed in the Temple, I fell into a trance and saw him (Jesus, 
as a spirit) saying unto me, make haste and get thee quickly out 
of Jerusalem because they wili not receive of the testimony con- 
cerning me (Acts xvii: 17-21). Certainly Paul's trances were 
neither feigned, nor epileptic fits, as skeptics have often affirmed. 
The apostles were religious Spiritualists — trance and clairvoy- 
ant mediums. That is why they were chosen by Jesus ; first, to 



126 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

witness his spiritual marveis , and in the second place, to have 
their mediumship developed by him, that they might become 
Spiritualist missionaries, "preaching the gospel to every crea- 
ture." 

The spirits of Moses and Elias appeared to Jesus and the 
disciples on the mount. Angel in the original Greek signifies a 
messenger — and "angel," "lord," "spirit," "man," are used in- 
terchangeably throughout the Scriptures. An angel, or messen- 
ger of the Lord spoke unto Philip. In verse 59th this angel is 
called a spirit (Acts viii : 20). Cornelius (Acts x : 3) saw in 
a vision openly ... an angel of God, who told him to send 
for Peter ; and when Peter came, Cornelius in relating the vision, 
said "a man stood before me in bright apparel." Surely Corne- 
lius could not have been laboring under a mental delusion, or an 
optical illusion. And there is no proof that he was dyspeptic or 
insane. The New Testament, especially, is a great storehouse of 
Spiritualism. And it is evident that the apostles believed that 
these visions, signs, and spiritual gifts, were for all future ages, 
tor 111 Acts 11-29, an apostle says: "The promise is unto you, 
and to your children, and to all that are afar off." 

Just compare the prison cases of Paul and Peter, with those 
Davenport brothers, whom for years I knew personally. 

And further, Wm. H. Fay, who accompanied the brothers 
for years in America, England, France, Russia, etc., now resides, 
a wealthy gentleman, in Melbourne, Australia. I was a brief 
guest at his residence when last in Australia. He fully endorses 
the Davenport brothers, and retains in his house their old 
cabinet. 

The apostle Paul was im- The Davenport mediums 
prisoned, and when released, were imprisoned in Oswego, 
he related how "Suddeniy and when released, related 
there was a great earthquake, how they were liberated and 
so that the foundations of the the facts are sustained by an 
prison were shaken; and im- affidavit before Justice Barnes 
mediately all the doors were — all under the sanction of an 
opened, and every one's bands oath. Here it is : 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 



127 



were loosened." An earth- 
quake might possibly have 
caused the doors to fly open, 
but it certainly would not have 
untied or "unloosened the 
bands" of the prisoners, Acts 
xvi: 26. Consider further the 
25th verse — "And at midnight 
Paul and Silas prayed and sang 
praises." Then followed the 
"shaking of the foundations of 
the prison," and the opening 
of the doors. Mark well — this 
all occurred in the dark, for 
the keeper "was waked out 
of his sleep," * * * and 
he "called for a light." And 
yet Christians believe this hap- 
pening in the dark, and based 
upon the statement of Paul, 
who, by his own admission, 
could not sometimes tell 
whether he "was in the body 
or out." 

Again, when Peter was in 
prison — 

"The angel of the Lord 
came upon him, and a light 
shined in the prison. And he 
smote Peter on the side, and 
raised him up." . . . "And 
his chains fell off from his 
hands." And the angel (or 
spirit) said, "Gird thyself, 
bind on thy sandals. . . . Cast 
thy garments about thee, and 



"Be it known to all people, 
that in the seventh month, A. 
D. 1859, we, the undersigned, 
were imprisoned in the com- 
mon jail in the City of Os- 
wego, N. Y., on account of 
propagating our religious 
principles ; and that after 
twenty-nine days of our con- 
finement, at evening, when we 
were all in our prison-room 
together, as we had just been 
locked in by the jailer, we hav- 
ing truly answered to his call, 
a (spirit) voice spoke and said, 
'Rand, you are to go out of 
this place this night. Put on 
your coat and hat, be ready.' 
Immediately the door was 
thrown open, and the voice 
again spoke and said, 'Now 
walk quickly out, and on to 
1 he atlic window yonder, and 
let thyself down by a rope, and 
flee from this place. We will 
take care of the boys. There 
are many angels present, 
though but one speaks.' 

"That this did absolutely 
occur in our presence, we do 
most solemnly and positively 
affirm, before God, and angels, 
and men. 

"Subscribed and sworn be- 
fore me, this first day ' of 



128 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

follow me." . . . "When they August, 1859. [Signed.] 
were past the first and second "James Barnes, 
ward, they came unto the iron Justice of the Peace." 

gate." . . . "Which opened "Ira Erastus Davenport." 
to them of its own accord, and "Luke P. Rand." (See Dr. 
they went out and passed on Nichols' (London) biography 
through one street and forth- of the Davenport brothers). 
with the angel departed from 
him." 

The above spiritual manifestation rests entirely upon the 
testimony of Peter. The affair happened in the dark. No one 
saw this angel or spirit except Peter — no one saw the angel 
smite Peter — no one saw the angel raise Peter up — no one 
saw the chains fall off from his hands — no one save Peter him- 
self heard the angel speak — and no one saw the iron gate open 
of its own accord. All of these extraordinary occurrences took 
place in the dark and rest for proof solely upon the say-so of 
Peter — the very Peter that denied his Lord, that drew his 
sword, that falsified, that cursed and swore that he never "knew 
the man." In our courts this would be considered a pretty 
Lough, untrustworthy witness. So far as we know he was not 
cross-questioned by Jew or Gentile. And yet, Christians piously 
believe these astounding spiiit manifestations occurring some 
2000 years years ago in the night, and based upon the bare word 
of denying, falsifying, treacherous Peter. God have mercy on 
these churchianic sectarians ! 

Yes — they accept Peter and deny the Davenports, whose 
reputations by the way, would suffer nothing in comparison with 
that of profane Peter. But this is the old, old story, make Peter 
a pillar of the Church, and denounce the Davenports. First 
crucify, then deify. Stone and imprison the prophets, then util- 
ize the same stones later on, in building monuments to immor- 
ralize their memories. 

Permit me to further press the point. Christians refuse to 
believe that the Davenport mediums were released from prison 
by spin* powers, though occurring less than forty years ago, re- 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM? 129 

ported in the daily papers and sworn to in the most solemn man- 
ner before a Justice of Peace. Personally, I knew the Daven- 
ports well — knew them to be genuine mediums ; and I also had 
the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Rand, the widow, whom so far as 
I know to the contrary, is still in the body. 

Are our Christian brethren so worldly, so material, so moss- 
buried that a spiritual manifestation must be nearly 2000 years 
old before they will believe it? Are they so benighted, so big- 
oted, and so creed-incrusted that they can accept only what hap- 
pened 1800, 1900, or 3000 years ago? If so — God pity them, 
God pity them ! 

They — these sectarists — believed, or profess to believe, 
that God made the first woman out of Adam's rib, that Samson 
chased and caught the foxes, that the big fish swallowed Jonah, 
that the devil took Jesus up onto "an exceeding high mountain," 
and other petrified survivals of archaic times ; but they 
cannot believe the testimonies of the ages concerning spirits' 
return to earth — cannot take the testimony of their honest life- 
long neighbors — cannot take the testimonies of distinguished 
living men — of Professors in Universities — of eminent Judges 
upon the Bench — of careful, plodding scientists — of profound 
philosophers — of poets, astronomers, historians and of the 
literati of the enlightened world. Such doubting, such church- 
lanic infidelity is amazing! God pity them and take their feet 
out of the mire and the clay of this irreligious unbelief that 
brings damnation ! It is as true now as in Jesus' time that "he 
that believeth not shall be damned," — that is, shall be con- 
demned — that is, shall suffer the natural consequences of big- 
otry and superstition, which bring fear, suffering and moral 
death. 

All intelligent persons know that there are not only a 
Nationalist Spiritualist organization, Spiritualist State associa- 
tions, and thousands of local societies of Spiritualists in Amer- 
ica and also more or less in all enlightened countries — and they 
further know that there are millions of people over the wide 
world noted for their intelligence, conspicuous for their honesty, 



130 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITUALISTS? 

famous for their scientific attainments, noted for their good 
moral character, and scholarly adepts in psychic research, who 
solemnly testify that (on strictly scientific principles) they have 
investigated and demonstrated the fact of a future life through 
spirit manifestations. Their testimony is as direct and over- 
whelming as it is unimpeachable ! And Spiritualism — this gos- 
pel of the Fatherhood of God, brotherhood of man and the pres- 
ent ministry of spirits, is sustained by the higher intuitions of 
all races. It is in harmony with the great law of evolution ; it is 
In agreement with pure reason; in accordance with the heart's 
sweetest hopes ; and in consonance with the soul's highest aspi- 
rations. It is found in the inspired teachings of all sacred books. 
It is God's living witness to-day of a future conscious existence. 
And those who war against it, war against God and immortality 
— war against *he Divine Spirit, the living Christ and the great 
apostolic "cloud of witnesses," the spirits of the "just made 
perfect," assigned to do the Father's will. 

Spiritualism not only demonstrates a future existence, not 
only teaches the certainty of suffering in all worlds for wrong- 
doing, not only encourages invention, art, science, exploration, 
and all sanitary enterprises, not only shows memory to be the 
"recording angel," and self-denial, nobleness of purpose, purity 
of life and sweet spirituality to be the ascending steps to heaven, 
but it strikes the chains from millions of slaves and builds un- 
sectarian universities. 

These angel ministries ever appeal to the silent, per- 
suasive, and most powerful incentives to a better life. 
And though no subtle chemistry can impart a more delicate 
odor to the rose, though no lapidary can burnish the stars, nor 
rhetorican's art add to the moral beauty and dignity of a true 
altruistic life, yet everyone can cultivate that loving-kindness 
which disarms resentment, that patience which endures suffer- 
ing, that gentleness which neutralizes acidity of temper, that 
forgiveness which obliterates personal animosities, that sweet- 
ness of disposition which adds lustre to all the heavenly graces, 
that consciousness of right which inspires justice, and that ten- 



WHAT IS SPIRITUALISM; 131 

der charity which, combined with tiie other virtues that angel 
messages inspire, make the harmonial man — heaven on earth. 

"The golden age lies onward, not behind. 
The pathway through the past has led us up; 
The pathway through the future will lead on 
And higher. We are rising from the beast 
Unto Christ and human brotherhood." 



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